


A Hundred Worlds

by InitialA



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, One Shot Collection, some chapters have sex and others don't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:32:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InitialA/pseuds/InitialA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”</p><p>A collection of AUs featuring the (romantic/platonic/antagonistic) relationship between Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. Characters to be added with each chapter. Tags may or may not be added, depending on the subject material.</p><p>Chapter title will contain what AU it takes place in. Chapter notes will contain warnings as necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They ride the same bus together literally every day

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always accepting AU ideas. Please submit them at http://initiala.tumblr.com

She first noticed him on the morning she forgot her book.

Maria always made fun of her for reading on the bus to school every day. “ _1984_ and _Animal Farm_ for a grade isn’t enough, you have to read _War and Peace_ for fun?” Or something else, whatever she happened to be reading at the time. She had so much going on in her life. At the top of that list were her parents splitting up. Next came ballet and Krav Maga four nights a week. Then there were school obligations, like mandatory services. Whatever other extracurricular someone (read: Darcy) could talk her into came at the bottom. Natasha wanted just twenty minutes to herself every morning. Sometimes more, if there was a traffic jam. Okay, lots of times more; this was New York, after all.

But today she had been in a rush to get out of hearing range of her mother shouting at the lawyers (at 7am? Was it that much of a problem?). And she had forgotten to grab not only her book, but her phone sitting on top of it. Natasha's options for entertainment shrank. She could review for her trig test later, or observe the other unfortunates who had to take public transportation. She wanted to gag at the thought of more trig, so she took the second option. Her busmates were a ragtag group. People on their way to work. People needing something to do with their mornings. People traveling. A few other students; seven at most, which was unusual in this area of Brooklyn.

The bus stopped, and a boy got on. Natasha took immediate stock of him, as girls forced to attend private, all-girls schools tend to do. About the same height as she was, blonde crew cut (a little longer on top than usual), skinny in an unhealthy way. He stared at the floor the entire five seconds it took him to get to his seat, as the bus took off again. His backpack landed on the seat with a thump. Natasha thought it must have weighed more than he did.

The boy distracted her enough that a hand on her leg caught her by surprise. The man sitting next to her looked determinedly at his phone as his free hand slid up her thigh. She yelled at the top of her lungs about the pervert copping a feel, and slapped him. A man in the aisle forced the assailant up and towards the stairs. An older woman sat down next to her instead. Natasha forced a smile of thanks, and mentally scolded herself, her skin crawling. She glared out the window for the rest of the trip to school.

Jane was the soothing voice of reason as Natasha ranted about the pervert on the bus during homeroom. Pepper was full of plans of revenge. Darcy chimed in every other minute about her dad’s promise of buying them all Tasers for their 18th birthdays. Natasha waved them both off. “It’s… not fine, I’m just…”

“We’ve all been there. We get it,” Jane said.

“Stupid uniforms…” Natasha muttered as roll call started.

Her bad mood stuck around all day; she glowered at the bus as it came up. She wasn’t pissed off enough to walk all the way home, though. Not in her school shoes, and definitely not in the heat that was refusing to leave. It was freaking October and it should not be 80 degrees. She attempted to read on the way home, but even in the best of moods _The Scarlet Letter_ wasn’t a page-turner. She would have to reread it later, anyway, to highlight and write her literary analysis paper for the next day. Natasha stuffed the book back into her bag, and huffed, staring out the window, her arms squeezed across her chest. And she had to work on her lines for the play, and practice for ballet tomorrow night, or Madame would never let her hear the end of it…

The boy was waiting at the bus stop, the boy from that morning. Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. He had the beginnings of a black eye; she didn’t remember seeing that this morning. She glanced up at him as he walked past. His eyes met hers—well, eye, the other one swelling closed. It was bright blue. A look crossed his face, recognition. Her bad mood came back in full force when she remembered that morning, and she looked away with a scowl. She heard him, or rather his backpack, hit the seat a few rows back.

*~*

She remembered her battered copy of _War and Peace_ the next morning, and her phone. (Her mother had delivered a blistering lecture about forgetting it. _"Did you or did you not spend six weeks of last year begging us for this? Six weeks culminating with a PowerPoint presentation on why you should not be the only teenager in the New York Metropolitan Area without a smartphone?"_ ) Her headphones were on and her bag tucked next to her as a barrier on the bus seat. She opened her book and slipped back into the comfortable remnants of Tsarist Russia.

In the back of her mind, she counted the stops the bus made. She filtered out when they were actual stops (a sudden halt that left the inexperienced lurching and struggling to recover balance) and traffic stops (gentler movements, accompanied by the hum of blaring car horns in her bones). At the fourth stop, the seat next to her dipped as she got a companion for the ride. She glanced over through her curtain of hair: the skinny boy from yesterday, the area around his eye a shiny purple. Whoever had clocked him had clocked him good. Natasha scowled into her book and ignored him until his stop came.

She had play practice after school, and then went straight to ballet after. She didn’t see the boy again until the following morning. He sat next to her again. She ignored him again. She scribbled notes in the margins of _The Scarlet Letter_ (she hadn’t had time to be thorough the night before) until he left. She glanced out the window to see where he was going, but there were no obvious schools around. She shook her head, and continued to write.

It became an odd routine. They sat next to each other almost every day, never saying a word to each other. She subtly watched his black eye turn green-yellow, then fade. She took note of new bruises on his hands and around his face; he wore long sleeves all the time and she was never confident about why. She had a few good ideas, though. Sometimes he had a bagel with him, but for the most part he only came aboard with his enormous backpack and stared ahead until he had to get off. He didn’t bother her, she didn’t bother him. Some days, Natasha left her music off to see if he would try to talk to her, but he never did. One day, just to test things, she didn’t even open her book, just leaned against the window. The boy was just quiet; he had an air of determination about him, with a bit of apprehension. She wondered if it was because of school, or something else.

She wished she had the guts to ask him.

Just before Thanksgiving, it started to snow. By now, Natasha was more or less used to her strange Bus Companion (Darcy referred to him as such, capital letters implied). Her Bus Companion struggled onto the bus one day in a worn coat, scarf, gloves, and the kind of hat that would make a Bolshevik proud. Natasha caught herself smiling in amusement as she looked at him, and then made herself stop and look back at her book. She’d finished _War and Peace_ and had now moved on to _Anna Karenina_. She glanced at him as he sat down, his backpack almost breaking the floor as it crashed down. There was a faint smile on his face. He glanced over at her; for the first time in weeks, their eyes met, and her eyes darted back to her book.

*~*

“Oh my God, just talk to him,” Pepper scolded over lunch. She was continuing the conversation from homeroom. Natasha had insisted it wait until Maria could join them at lunch.

Maria said nothing, but Natasha knew the expression on her face. “Shut up, Maria,” the redhead said.

Maria just smiled.

*~*

It took another two weeks for her to get up the guts to say anything to him. If she was honest with herself, it would have been longer if she wasn't tired from school and extracurriculars. As it was, saying anything just before winter break seemed bad enough. As the boy sat down, Natasha closed her book with determination. “Hi,” she said.

The boy blinked, startled. He started to look around before realizing that she was, in fact, talking to him. “Hey.” His voice cracked a little.

Natasha resisted the urge to laugh. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks. Where the hell do you go to school?”

The boy gave a shy smile. “FDR. I'm a junior. You?”

“Bishop Kearney. Same.”

“Private school.”

“Got a problem with it, public school?”

“No, no. I'm an idiot; the uniform should have given it away.”

“Yeah, well…" There was a moment of uncomfortable quiet. She pursed her lips. "Why do you sit next to me every day?"

The boy tilted his head in confusion. _'In for a penny, in for a pound_.' Natasha thought. "Is it because of that creep back in October?"

“I’m sorry. I thought… I mean, I wouldn’t presume, but… I figured I’d…”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I just figured, a girl should be allowed to mope, or read ridiculous tomes, in peace. At least for six stops.”

Natasha's eyebrow ticked in amusement. "They're not tomes."

"Yeah, I'm gonna call bullshit on that one."

"This one's like, half as long as the last one. And I haven't even touched _Les Miserables_ yet."

"It's a little more than half, and _Les Mis_ is only like, 50 pages longer than _War and Peace_."

"You're revealing yourself by knowing that, you know."

The boy grinned. One of his front teeth was a little crooked. Natasha surprised herself by thinking it was cute. "Steve Rogers. Since you asked," the boy, Steve, said.

"Natasha Romanoff. Two f's, no v."

"That explains so much."

"You're a little punk, you know that?"

"And now you know why I get my eye blackened every other week."

Natasha laughed outright. Steve's smile widened. "I would think you'd have learned to duck by now," she said.

"I don't like bullies. You don't win by ducking," he explained.

"You don't win by going blind either."

Steve shrugged. "There are all kinds of ways to win."

"You're a bit of a weirdo."

"Says the girl who reads 19th century Russian literature for fun. Don't give me that look; everyone takes comprehensive American lit junior year. I know that's not on your reading list," Steve said.

She was, in fact, scrutinizing him. She fought the urge to punch him on principle. He looked out the window, and started to get up. "Almost my stop. See you later?"

Natasha thought it was odd he would ask at this point, but nodded. He grunted under the weight of his backpack. "What do you have in there, anyway?" She asked as he went to the stairs.

"You get punched into your locker twenty times and see how fast it gets jammed for good," he called over his shoulder as the bus stopped. "Later!"

She watched out the window as he walked down the block. _'Steve Rogers... what a weird kid..._ '


	2. Camp counselors/Steve's got game AU

Peter vaulted out of the bunk above Steve's at reveille, and grabbed his towel off the line that was strung between two cabents. "COME ON!" He shouted at the other boys.

"Pete, you even got your shorts on?" Harry grumbled, stuffing his head under his pillow.

"He slept in them," Steve said. He was putting on his staff shirt; his hair stuck up at odd angles thanks to a shower after his dawn run around the camp. It was also his turn to hose down the kids at polar bear, and he had to leave now or face Nick's wrath. "Boys, up and at 'em. Either go to polar bear or hit the showers. Breakfast's in thirty, and if you're not ready you get to walk through girls' camp in your skivvies."

Peter sprinted across the Polliwog field and through Tadpole territory towards the pool. Steve followed at a more leisurely pace. It was only day two of this two-week session, and Peter showed no signs of slowing down in his Excitement About Summer Camp. Tony, still stretched out in his bunk (though the blankets were gone), stuck up his first three fingers as Steve waved at his cabent. Flipping the bird was frowned upon at Camp Summerwind. The three-fingered salute was one of the few time-honored workarounds passed down through the generations of camp counselors. Steve just shook his head.

He started jogging when he saw the line of kids waiting outside the pool gate. Technically polar bear didn't start for another five minutes, but there was a heated rivalry around these parts that was Serious Business. There wasn't a prize for it, only a matter of pride: Girl's Camp vs. Boy's Camp in a battle to the death of who could get the most people out of bed and into a pool before 7:15am. So far it looked like there were more boys than girls, but the boys had the home field advantage, as the pool was closer to them.

Steve unlatched the gate and slipped in among a chorus of whining. "Easy, fellas, two minutes. Let the girls catch up."

"Ew, no way!"

"Why would we do that?!"

Steve shook his head, and went to the pool house to get out the hose. "Don't worry, Rogers, cooties go away eventually," Natasha's voice rang out from atop the lifeguard stand as he bent down to grab the bundle.

Steve straightened and shielded his eyes against the morning sun. Natasha was redoing her ponytail, backlit by the sunrise. She looked beautiful. "Not soon enough. Any problems last night?" He called, taking the hose to the spicket.

"MJ tried to put out raccoon bait, and Kate wouldn't stop shining her flashlight at the ceiling and counting the spiders, so America and Kamala kept screaming about spiders all night... You know, the usual Monday."

"I'm so glad boys like bugs."

Natasha shook her head, and Steve finished hooking up the hose, turning the water on and waiting for Bruce and Jane to open up the gate. "You ready?" The other teen called.

Steve nodded, and in came a flood of preteens. Steve dutifully sprayed their feet free of grass and mud; some of them he sprayed all over just because it was fun to watch them pretend to get mad about it. "It makes the pool warmer!" He called.

The kids screamed about how cold the pool was anyway.

Darcy came to stand next to him as her girls got their feet sprayed. She had piled her mass of brown curls on top of her head; she looked like she hadn't slept at all. "You alright?" Steve asked.

Darcy shook her head. "Skunk fight."

Steve winced. "Anyone get hit?"

"No, thank God, or we'd all still be bathing in tomato soup."

"I thought that didn't work."

"Whatever. I hope I don't ever have to find out. Anyway, the girls weren't exactly sleepy after that... Giggle, giggle, giggle all night. Maybe nodded off around three."

"Sorry, Darce."

"I'll live. I just need some tea--WALK DON'T RUN!" She and Steve shouted it at the same time as Wanda's girls came sprinting through the gate. Natasha was a beat behind them, on the other side of the pool.

Wanda, her red hair a lion's mane around her face, grimaced outside of the fence. "Sorry."

"Hair tie?" Darcy offered one of the dozens on her wrist.

" _Thank you_ ," Wanda exhaled, grabbing it as if her life depended on it. "Little demons hid my hair kit, I can't dig through their trunks until first period."

"Jesus, what'd you do to them to make them hate you already?" Darcy asked, giggling as Steve sprayed one of the new boys in the butt.

"Oh please," Wanda made a face before flipping her hair upside down to tie it up. "I'm the best, they just haven't realized it. And at this rate they never will."

Natasha blew the two-minute warning whistle, causing a chorus of whining from those still in the pool. Most campers were happy enough to abide by the polar bear rivalry rules: jump in at least the shallow end and it counts. There were always about twenty kids who were part-dolphin, though, and often had to be dragged out of the water and down to the mess hall. Natasha's mornings on duty tended to clear out fast though; she was scary when she put her mind to it. "Go get dressed for breakfast!" Darcy yelled.

One of the kids was asking for a hand up from Bruce; Bruce shook his head with a knowing look on his face. "Don't even try it, kid. Ladder's right there."

Steve turned off the spicket and sprayed one of the girls still lingering in the water until the hose ran dry. The girl screeched. "You heard the whistle, get out and go get dressed!" Steve told her, grinning.

"You're a jerk, Steve!"

"You're already wet!"

She stuck her tongue out, then swam to the edge to hoist herself out. Darcy just laughed. "Discouraging crushes early, I see."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Steve's face was the picture of angelic innocence as he rolled up the hose again and stowed it.

Natasha came up to them, playing with the key ring coiled around her wrist. “Morning. Can I lock up, or are you looking to rent?” She teased.

“Lock away,” Steve grinned and blew her a kiss. “Good morning.”

Darcy gagged. “Please, I haven’t had any caffeine.”

“Rogers, knock it off,” Natasha scolded, locking the pool house and leading the way to the gate.

“You really shouldn’t have encouraged me, I’m completely hopeless now.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, and looped her arms between both Jane’s and Darcy’s. “Come on, before he gets any more ridiculous.”

“See you in a few,” Steve told them, and joined Bruce on the walk back to the boys’ tents.

Tony was awake; alert was another matter, if the two nine-year olds attempting to climb up on the roof of their cabent was anything to go by. Steve plucked one from the shoulders of the other while Bruce administered the scolding, and then walked up onto the pad to smack Tony upside the head. “Morning, champ!” He bellowed.

“ _Ow_. Also _loud_. The heeee-eck did I ever do to you?” Tony censored himself quickly.

“Almost got two kids with broken necks. Come on, round ‘em up and move ‘em out.”

“Need sugar,” Tony said, a hint of a whine in his voice.

Steve opened the trunk at the foot of Tony’s bunk and pulled out one of his Secret Stash: Kool-Aid powder, sugar included. “You can have all you want at breakfast,” he tossed the container to Tony, who fumbled it.

“Too far.”

“Too bad. Boys,” Bruce raised his voice and Tony’s campers came scurrying in. “Tony here needs dragged to breakfast. Care to do the honors?”

The boys gleefully yanked Tony up and frog-marched him down the path to the road. Tony hollered over his shoulder, “YOU ARE BOTH TRAITORS TO THE CAUSE AND I HATE YOU!”

Steve and Bruce just laughed and went to gather their own campers.

*~*

The crowd outside the mess hall buzzed at the smell of Charlie-the-cook’s famous cinnamon rolls. Natasha and her girls found Steve and his boys near the porch. “I wonder what the occasion is?” Natasha mused. “Charlie usually saves these for the last Saturday.”

“Maybe he had a bunch of eggs that were going to go bad,” Steve suggested, slinging an arm around her shoulder.

Natasha’s girls giggled. “Are you her booooooooooyfriend?” One of the girls, with long wavy dark hair, asked in a sing-song voice.

“Yes, I am,” Steve said proudly, and kissed Natasha’s temple with a loud ‘smack’. Natasha gave him a mock-annoyed look. “Mac, don’t listen to him, he’s not. He’s only dreaming.”

“Mac?” Steve asked.

“Miss America Chavez,” the girl, presumably America, said, her chest puffed out. “That’s me.”

Steve noticed Peter looking up at Natasha shyly. “You alright, Pete?”

The boy turned bright red and nodded. “Yu-huh.”

Harry was in an intense debate about something with Billy, Teddy, and David. Some of Natasha’s girls were jutting in with their own arguments. Steve figured they were alright for now. “What’s your schedule today?” He asked Natasha.

“Maria has me down at the boating lake all morning, and it depends on what the lake-lake is doing for the afternoon,” Natasha said. “If it stays quiet like this they’ll probably bust out the big banana.”

The kids turned towards her at once at the words ‘big banana’. “What’s that?” David asked.

Natasha winked conspiratorially. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”

The kids went wide-eyed, and debated this news in hushed voices amongst themselves. Steve chuckled. “Rope swing this morning?”

“Only if they put another guard down there. I’ll probably be roasting on the docks by myself.”

“I’ll swing by and keep you company.”

“I’ll push you off the docks,” Natasha threatened. “And I’ll leave you for the snapping turtles.”

Steve put his hand over his chest. “You don’t love me anymore. Pete, you take her, she’ll be nicer to you.”

The boy turned red again, and shook his head so hard Steve feared he might sprain something. Natasha punched him in the arm; Steve winced. “No teasing, that goes double for you. Or I'll for real push you off the docks.”

"As opposed to for fake?"

The kitchen crew threw the doors open, and there was a surge of humanity towards the food. Steve’s boys tried taking their chairs down early, but he reminded them to wait until after the blessing. He exchanged a secret handshake with his best friend Bucky as he passed with his boys. “Thursday, we’re heading out for the night, you up for it?” Bucky asked.

“Jim and Sue’s?”

“Is there anywhere else to go?” Bucky grinned.

“Well… Wal-mart,” Steve said with a grin of his own.

“Nah, we’ll save that until Stark runs out of mini-muffins.”

“Which will be next week.”

“Exactly. Spread out the love, man,” Bucky went to his table, three rows back. He was a Frog counselor, or the oldest boys at thirteen and fourteen, while Steve had Polliwogs, who were eleven and twelve.

Nick came up to the mic and gave the morning blessing. This gave way to the clatter of chairs being taken down from the tables, and then the kitchen crew came out with the hot food. While it was good manners to let the boys have first dibs on the food (their parents were the whole reason he had a job, after all), it was common knowledge that it was every man, woman, and child for themselves on Cinnamon Roll Day. As there were only six of them, Steve managed to get everyone to have one cinnamon roll and divided the other two. Harry said he could wait for the refill; he glanced at Peter as he said that. Steve then glanced in the direction of Bucky’s table. The way Harry watched out for Peter reminded Steve of the way Bucky had watched out for him when they were kids.

The meal was about halfway over when a ruckus erupted from Bucky’s side of the room. “TENT 43, WHERE ARE YOU GOING FIRST PERIOD?”

Tent 43 was Steve’s. He looked over and saw Bucky grinning. Steve deliberated with his boys; they were fairly similar in interests, so they quickly decided. Steve counted softly for them, “One, two, three, PROBABLY ARCHERY OR SOMETHING. WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?”

A few moments passed, then Bucky’s table responded with “WE’RE GOING ON A CREEK HIKE. COOL KIDS ONLY.”

Steve’s boys looked at him with pleading, puppy-dog eyes. Steve grinned. “Alright, alright. Sounds good, meet at the horse barn. One, two, three, SOUNDS GOOD, MEET AT THE HORSE BARN.”

There was an eruption from Bruce’s table, a few feet away. “HEY CAN WE JOIN YOU GUYS?”

Steve and his boys debated on a response for a moment, but Bucky’s table responded first. “WE SAID COOL KIDS ONLY.”

There were shouts of outrage from Bruce’s boys. He corralled them long enough to try to plan a response, but Tony’s table shouted, “WE’LL HANG OUT WITH YOU, TENT 47.”

“WILL YOU GUYS SHUT UP? WE’RE TRYING TO EAT OVER HERE.” A table of girls shouted from the other side of the dining hall.

Steve looked over. It was Wanda’s table. She waved cheerfully; he blew her a kiss back. “How many girlfriends do you _have_ , Steve?” Billy asked.

“All of the girlfriends,” Steve replied, taking a bite of cinnamon roll, savoring the flavor.

“ _All_ of them?” The boy asked, incredulous.

“Yup. Sorry, kiddo, the ladies love me.”

“Whatever. Girls are dumb,” Billy muttered, stabbing his cinnamon roll with more force than necessary.

“Some girls are okay,” Peter said, looking towards the girls’ half of the hall.

This resulted in a lot of teasing, and then a lot of Harry threatening the other boys, and then Steve telling them that they could forget about any creek hikes if they didn’t straighten up. This shut them up quickly. Steve used the moment of silence to divvy up the cleanup chores, and sent them on their way.

Nick came up to the mic again after cleanup, and started the morning announcements. There was indeed a nature hike along the creek that would take up the entire morning. The boys were restless during most of the announcements, so Steve missed most of them, including that day’s art project. He liked hanging out in the craft shed, it was peaceful. And Peggy let him bring in his boom box and play CDs while he helped the kids.

Don, the waterfront director, led them all in a rousing rendition of “I like big boats and I cannot lie” before announcing that the rope swing would be open at the boating lake. Steve glanced over at Natasha; she was conferring with one of the other lifeguards. Don continued, saying that the morning at the lake-lake would be dedicated to “sandcastles and swimming, on such a fine morning” but after lunch they’d be introducing the big banana. This announcement concluded with a conga-line of most of the activity directors leaving the hall, chanting “BIG. BANANA. BIG, BIG BANANA.”

“What’s the big banana?” Teddy asked.

Steve only winked, holding a finger to his lips as Maria concluded the morning announcements and dismissed them.

*~*

“And you made fun of my Crocs,” Steve said as Bucky winced his way back up the hill to their tents.

“I wasn’t expecting the flip-flops to break…” Bucky muttered.

“They were five bucks at Old Navy, dude, what’d you expect?”

The creek hike had been successful; no boys had been lost to the wilderness, many a crawdad had been caught and released again, and Bucky’s shoes had broken on the trip back, making him walk barefoot along the side of the creek. “Crocs are fuckin’ dumb, man.”

“I will fork over the money for them myself so your princess feet don’t get torn up more,” Steve joked. Bucky pretended to stumble, shoving Steve into the railing of the stairs, causing him to laugh. “Jerk.”

“What time is it?” Bucky asked.

Steve checked his watch. “We’ve got like, twenty minutes before the period ends. You’ve got time to wash off the leeches and poison ivy before lunch.”

“Your mouth is writing checks your ass can’t cash, man.”

Steve grinned at that. “What, you think I’d’ve changed by now?”

“Oh don’t even pretend with me, I know what you’re doing. The stairs split here. Go on, go down to the boating lake and woo your girl. I’ll get back to the camp or die trying,” Bucky gave an exaggerated sniff. “Just remember me well, if the bears do come for me.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Drama queen.”

“Go get her, lover boy.”

He waved Bucky off and set off at a trot down the trail to the boating lake. He came out of the woods as a car horn was blaring and Nick’s truck rolled past on the road that separated the woods from the lake. Steve waved, and then ran up the knoll to where Natasha was standing. “Hey,” he called.

She caught the rope as it swung back and a child cannonballed into the lake. The girl resurfaced with a shriek, and strove back to shore, driving herself into the mud at the bank with the force of her strokes. Natasha glanced at Steve over her sunglasses. “Aren’t you supposed to be up a creek without a paddle somewhere?”

“Got back early. I thought you were on the docks.”

“I was, but I switched with Gwen because there’s shade here,” Natasha said, helping a boy up on to the swing stand. “Alright, see how many times you can get through the alphabet before you hit the water,” she told him.

The boy froze for a moment, then his face went hard with determination. He jumped from the stand, clinging to the rope, zipping through the alphabet as as he could. At the top of the rope’s arc, Natasha shouted, “DROP!” and the boy let go. He dropped seven feet into the water, and resurfaced with a gasp. “Five and half!” He shouted.

“I counted four,” a girl on the shore said.

“Four and a half,” her friend said.

The boy growled as he swam to shore. “I’ll go again, and you’ll see. Five and a half.”

Natasha shrugged. “Get in line and try again. The record is eight, and no one has broken it in twenty years.”

The kids goggled at one another. Natasha winked at Steve over her sunglasses and he chuckled. He watched as the kids gleefully went sailing through the air. “No turtles today?” Steve asked as the boy who laid claim to five and a half alphabets went again.

“They’re probably scared and at the other end of the lake, over by the willow trees.”

“Ah.”

Gwen called in all the boats with the megaphone, and Natasha cut the rope-swing line off. “Go on, dry off and get back up the hill. Lunch in forty minutes.”

As the kids trudged off, Natasha stripped off her shirt and shorts, and kicked off her flip-flips. Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Did I miss a memo?” He asked. “Not that I’m complaining, I mean, don’t get me wrong.”

She glared at him, dropping her sunglasses on her clothes. “I’m hot, Rogers. Overheated, though we both know I mean it both ways.”

She stepped up onto the rope stand, and went sailing through the air, letting out a Tarzan yell that made any remaining children stop and look back as she let go. To Steve, time slowed down for a moment. Her arms arced above her, her red ponytail streaming and glinting in the sunlight, as her outstretched limbs came together in a cannonball. Steve remembered to breathe only when she surfaced, shaking water out of her face. She grinned, and swam for the rope, swinging helplessly above the water. She grabbed it, and came to shore. She held out the rope to him. “Let’s see you fly, Rogers. I’ll spot you.”

He blinked, and then shrugged. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it next to hers, kicked off his Crocs, and took the rope. He caught her looking him over, and raised an eyebrow. She raised one of hers in return. He got up on the stand. “Alphabet or Tarzan?” He asked.

“Alphabet.”

“Shit.”

He took a deep breath and jumped, rattling off the alphabet as fast as his tongue would let him. He heard Natasha shout, “DROP!” and he let go. He was airborne for a few seconds, and then he landed hard in the water. His back was on fire. He scrambled for the surface, gasping and coughing. He saw Natasha doubled over with laughter. Steve bobbed for a moment in the water, still in shock from the landing, before he remembered the snapping turtles, and made for shore. His feet dug into the mud, and he collapsed onto the grass. “Oh my God…” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha gasped, wiping tears away. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing… Are you okay?”

He felt her kneel next to him. There was a light touch on his back. “Does this hurt?”

“The whole damn thing stings… Was it that bad, really?”

“It was amazing,” she said, and started giggling again. “You were like a baby giraffe, all limbs and no coordination. The best backflop I’ve seen in years.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me. You’ll be fine, you’re just really red.”

She dropped her towel on him, and moved away. He got up, dried off, and put his shirt and shoes back on. He threw her towel over her head as they walked to the path in the woods. “How many times did I get through the alphabet?”

“Four and a half.”

*~*

The Mystery of the Big Banana was solved after the rest period, when Don revealed to the kids that it was a giant inflatable banana that seated eight. A jet ski tugged it down the coast and back. There was a song that went with it and everything, and Don made everyone sing it the entire time they were on the banana. Steve knew this already, and gladly missed the occasion to spend the hot afternoon in the craft shed, painting sun catchers with the kids and playing “The World’s Greatest Air Guitar Album” on repeat. Okay, he did more air guitar tutoring than actual painting, but art was versatile. He did regret not getting to watch Natasha on the back of the jet ski, but there would be other banana days.

After dinner, they had an all-boys-camp activity: dodge ball in the Polliwog field. Steve tried not to groan; his back still stung from earlier. “I’m gonna go play Quidditch with girls camp,” he said during the downtime after dinner.

“Nooooo, Steve, you’re HUGE. We need you on our team!” Teddy pleased.

“I’m huge?”

Teddy held up his arms, trying to make a muscle. He was still small and scrawny, though, so it didn’t work out so well for him. Steve nodded in understanding. “Ah. See, that makes me a target, not an offensive player.”

This turned out to be more or less true, with Steve resorting to deflecting as many balls as he could to the boys on his team, and ducking a lot. “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!” Tony, on the opposing team, yelled over the line.

Steve threw his ball, his only means of defense, at Tony, and got him out.

*~*

Thursday rolled around, with anticipations skyrocketing for their night off. The all-camp activity that night was an enormous game of Capture the Flag, and it shocked Steve how dirty the girls played. A couple of the bigger Nymphas and Butterflies managed to drag the smaller boys into girls’ territory for imprisonment. Granted, Steve wasn’t one to talk, especially when Wanda was taunting him in No Man’s Land and he resorted to tackling her, picking her up and carrying her, fireman-style, into the boys’ territory. Wanda’s campers were screeching about cheating the whole time, while the boys hooted and hollered. Wanda ran to join the human chain.

The “prison” was the tree by Polliwog Lane. The girls formed a human chain, hand to foot, to No Man’s Land. Technically not illegal, as long as one person still touched the tree, but proved frustrating when a swift Caterpillar girl ran in and slapped the hand of the Butterfly at the end of the line, freeing thirty players. This caused enough distraction and mass confusion in boys’ territory for Natasha and Darcy to lead in a legion of ten swift Butterflies and Nymphas with almost no repercussions to capture the boys’ flag. When the boys chipped away at their numbers, they managed to hot-potato the flag all the way back to the line for a victory.

After that, Steve hit the showers and changed. He retrieved his phone from its secret hiding place (phones were contraband except on nights off and weekends). He welcomed the kid from kitchen crew who would be taking his boys for the night. “I’ll be back when you wake up,” he promised Peter, before he left. “As long as you go to sleep, that is.”

Peter nodded, and Steve strolled off to Frog Point to meet up with Bucky. He turned on his phone and scrolled through the various texts that buzzed in. Tony was already at the Point, waiting, and together they set off for the staff parking lot. “Real food. Real soda,” Tony kept saying.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said distractedly, wondering just how many texts his mom could send before remembering he wouldn’t get them on time.

To Steve’s surprise, Natasha was sitting on the hood of Bucky’s pickup, playing on her phone. “You didn’t mention her coming,” he accused, his voice soft.

“Like you’re complaining,” Bucky retorted.

“The hell you got a truck for, Barnes?” Natasha called. “You hauling logs or some other outdoorsy shit?”

“Get the hell off my truck, woman! No respect, I tell you,” Bucky patted the hood with affection as Natasha slid down. “She doesn’t care about you like I do.”

" _She_ liked your hippie van better. More room," Natasha said.

Tony called shotgun, so Steve and Natasha wedged themselves in the back. “Where we going?” Natasha asked.

“Jim and Sue’s.”

“Please, can we stop at a McDonald’s? I am jonesing for some fries.”

"It's amazing how low your vocabulary drops when you aren't around the kids," Bucky commented.

"Fuck off, like you're any better."

Tony pointed an accusing finger back at her. “ _She_ gets to make requests! Mini-muffins! Wal-Mart!”

“You should ration your shit out, Stark, this ain’t no joyride,” Bucky scoffed, starting the truck and heading out of camp. “Wal-Mart is next week. Besides,” he grinned in the rearview mirror. “She said ‘please’.”

“Mama taught me manners,” Natasha said.

Tony grumbled, and changed the radio station. They traded stories on the ride into town, making each other laugh until they felt sick. It was the weirdest thing, Steve thought, not for the first time. Save for him and Bucky, none of them would have probably become friends had they not gotten this job. But, with three summers under their belts, they were inseparable. They had inside jokes and lingo that no one outside of the camp staff would even begin to understand. Camp legends about Nick and Maria, the directors of boys’ and girls’ camps, respectively; Bucky swore that last summer Nick would just appear in places when Bucky was breaking curfew. Tony agreed, saying it was like Bloody Mary. “Say his name three times, and there he is.”

“Maria’s the same,” Natasha insisted. “One time, I swear to God, I was working the archery range, and she just walked out of the supply closet. Unless she’s got some secret teleportation shit going on, I have no idea how she got there.”

Bucky pulled into Jim and Sue’s, a local restaurant. Steve told Bucky to get his usual while he called his mom. The reception was shoddy, though, so he only managed to talk for a few minutes. They came back with their sandwiches, and Bucky let the tailgate down on his truck. “See, no logs,” he told Natasha as they hopped into the back. “How’s your mom?” He asked Steve.

“What, you got it to sit in?”

“She’s good.”

Bucky shrugged, and bit into his sub. “For whatever I need it to be,” he said, his mouth full.

Natasha made a face, and speared a meatball with her fork. Steve sat on the tailgate, as opposite from Tony as he could get; Tony was making obscene noises of appreciation at his ‘real food’ and ‘real soda’. Natasha, perched on the wheel hub, caught his eye, and they laughed. When they finished, they sat or lay in the bed of the truck, appreciating the semi-rural night’s silence, unbroken by the sounds of children. “I like the job, but I’m so fucking glad they pay me,” Tony said at one point, and they all understood.

Then, Bucky said they had to get going if they wanted to stop at McDonald’s before they broke curfew. They all scrambled to get back into the cab. Natasha yawned as Bucky started the engine. She leaned against Steve. He put his arm around her. “You two cozy back there?” Bucky asked, catching Steve’s eye in the mirror.

“Peachy, thanks,” Steve nodded.

“Just fries, Nat?”

“And a lemonade.”

“Sizes?”

“The biggest fry I can legally obtain in the state of Pennsylvania, and a small drink.”

“That is oddly disproportionate,” Tony said.

“Jonesing, Stark. Jonesing.”

They drove for about ten minutes before they found any golden arches, and Bucky ordered. Natasha slid him five bucks. “Ah, fuck. Shoes,” Bucky said as he pulled around to the window.

“You’re the one who didn’t want to go to Wal-Mart tonight,” Steve reminded him. “The shoeless heathen remains for another week.”

Tony huffed, and put his feet on the dashboard, arms crossed tight across his chest. “I have no sympathy for you.”

Bucky scowled for a moment, and then turned on the charm for the girl working the window. He passed Natasha back her bag and her drink. “Wow, when you said ‘small’ I didn’t think you wanted a Dixie cup,” Tony remarked as they pulled out onto the road.

Natasha looked at her very small cup of lemonade and tried to keep a straight face. “This is quite possibly the smallest size legally for sale in the state of Pennsylvania.”

“With the biggest straw they could find,” Steve remarked.

“Seriously, like there wasn’t a smaller straw for the kids menu? I’m almost afraid to take a sip. It’ll all be gone in one fell swoop.”

“They thought about giving you the regular small, but they thought you deserved a little more,” Tony quipped.

“The biggest small they could find, just for you,” Bucky said.

“I’d retort, but I need to take a drink from my enormously small lemonade,” Natasha took an exaggerated sip. “Seriously, I think I drank it all right there.”

Steve opened her bag and took out a few fries. “Thanks,” he told her.

“Hey! There’d better not be any wiggly ones in there!”

He opened his mouth so she could hear the crunching. She made a face. “You’re disgusting, I can’t believe I ever considered kissing you.”

“Say whaaaaaaaat?” Tony twisted in his seat to look back at them.

“You are such a gossip,” Natasha shoved him.

Steve made a good show of pretending he was a normal human with a regular pulse. “No, no, go back. You were saying something about kissing me.”

“Nope, forget it. You’re a fry-stealer. Fry-stealers don’t get kisses from hot lifeguards.”

Steve pouted. Natasha stuck her tongue out, and ate a handful of fries.

*~*

Back at camp, Bucky led the way through the woods with his ‘enormously small’ keyring flashlight. He stopped at the stairs to the girls’ camp. “You need us to walk up with you?” He asked, gesturing with the flashlight.

“Nah. I’ll be alright. If you don’t see me at polar bear, assume I broke my neck and feel horrible about not insisting on escorting me back to my tent, though,” Natasha teased. She held up her phone, proving she had a light.

“Will do.”

Natasha punched Steve in the arm affectionately as Bucky and Tony started down the path. “Good night, loser.”

“Night, O Queen of Tiny Lemonades.”

He waited for her to start climbing up the stairs, and then jogged to catch up with the others. “You get any sloppy French-fry-breath makeouts?” Tony asked.

“Nah.”

“Shame,” Bucky said.

“I’ve got you guys for that,” Steve said.

Tony scoffed. “Please, I specified French-fry-breath. Try another time.”

“If you’re offering.” Steve’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket. ‘ _I’m not on duty Saturday_ _xo Nat_ ’. He smiled to himself, and shot back an affirmative reply. “Besides, I’ve got all summer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is entrenched deeply in, and pulls heavily and truthfully from, the ten summers I spent at summer camp up on Lake Erie, as my use of the word ‘spicket’ reveals my linguistic origins. A few points of clarification: A cabent is a cabin-tent hybrid. Solid roof and corner posts over a cement pad with canvas flaps that can be rolled up or down depending on the weather (and trust me, it’s frickin’ hot when they’re down) Charlie-the-cook’s cinnamon rolls are real, and I am sad for you if you have never experienced them. There was a short blessing before every meal, because it was a YMCA-run camp, but they did their best to be nondenominational; we had kids of all and no faiths, so Kamala being at the camp wouldn’t have been strange. Lake Erie is the lake-lake, and we had a separate, smaller lake for canoeing and the like. And rope-swinging, complete with turtles.


	3. Police procedural

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

Detective Natasha Romanoff sat in the back of the courtroom, her knuckles white as she clenched the hem of her skirt. As the verdict came down, not guilty, she stormed out before she could hear anything else. Her heels clicked on the marble floors, echoing a warning to anyone who might get in her way.

The entire city could have burned from the fires of her rage. The entire city could burn down right now, and she wouldn’t care. She had no love for a city that didn’t care that Clint Barton was dead and buried, that employed judges who freed his murderer.

She had no love for Assistant District Attorney Steven Rogers.

She got into her car. She drove for hours. Most of it was a blur; it was a miracle she didn’t end up dead herself. She found herself at her favorite gun range, firing clip after clip downrange in her stocking feet until her arms shook from the kickback.

Natasha Romanoff was a decorated officer of ten years, and a registered gun owner since the day after her eighteenth birthday. It took a while for her arms to start shaking.

When she finally brought the last target in, took off her mufflers and took out the earplugs, he was leaning against the back wall. “What the fuck are you doing here?” She asked flatly.

She hated that her ammo was gone.

“I saw you leaving the trial. I wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid. Though with what you must have paid for all that…” Steven gestured to the shells littering the floor. “I can’t be so sure.”

“No, what the _fuck_ are _you_ doing here? As in, why are _you_ here? As in, why did you think I even wanted to see your smug fucking face right now?” She spat.

Their relationship was rocky at best and downright homicidal at worst. Their coworkers couldn’t understand how two people who were, at the bottom, very similar could hate each other so much. Natasha could rattle the reasons off in her sleep. He came from a good family; she’d been raised practically on the streets. He was idealistic, she was jaded. She tended to bend the rules when working. He had a problem with that. They fought about it. Often. There were too many things they didn’t see eye to eye on, too many years of bitterness and arguments; more often than not, he was a good ADA to have in their department, but there was a mutual understanding that they keep their distance from each other and they’d work together fine. And right now, more than anything she hated that he still cared enough to make sure she wasn’t putting a bullet into someone’s brain.

“Because your partner’s dead,” Steven said, and Natasha closed her eyes. “Because if Clint were alive and you were this angry about a verdict, he’d be here instead of me.”

“You don’t get to say his name,” she whispered.

“We worked together for twelve years, I think I do.”

“You let his murderer walk.”

“You beat him within an inch of his life before arresting him, Detective,” Steven’s voice was hard. She turned away. “He didn’t need a good lawyer to clear him after that, he just happened to get lucky on that front too.”

Her fist came fast. He was faster; he caught her arm and twisted her around, putting her under pressure. She winced and attempted to hit him with her free hand. He pinned her other arm down. “Do it,” Natasha hissed. “I’ve already lost everything else. Clint, my badge, my job…”

“Internal Affairs is still reviewing your case, and you’ll probably get psych. You haven’t lost your job yet,” Steven said. How it must have grated him to say that; IA letting bad cops walk free was his pet peeve. “You might get stripped down to Detective Third Grade at most; they know what losing a partner does to people.”

She twisted, trying to get free; she only hurt herself further. Her eyes stung with tears unshed since that night four months ago, when Clint bled out in her arms on the docks. “I hate you,” she whispered, her voice choked.

“I know.”

He let her go. She rolled her arm in its socket. She stalked over to her shoes, and grabbed the empty gun from the counter. She walked towards the exit. “Romanoff.”

She stopped. “He wouldn’t want you to be like this.”

“Go fuck yourself, Rogers.” She left him standing amongst the empty shells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unsurprisingly, it's super hard to write them with an antagonistic relationship, but that was the request.


	4. Ice Cream Parlor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by butcherbeezyland

“You’re actually judging me for this, aren’t you?” Natasha asked as they got out of her car.

“No! Well… a little bit. Kind of,” Pepper said, smiling ruefully. “If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t if you’d just ask him for his number already.”

“Thanks,” Natasha drawled. She yanked open the door to the parlor. “I feel so much better, really.”

An ice cream parlor has this scent that instantly puts you at ease. The crisp air conditioning mingling with years of sweetness eased the knot in Natasha’s chest. The young man at the counter looked up as the tinkling of the bell faded. His lopsided grin caused a thousand butterflies to hatch in her stomach. “Hey! If it isn’t my favorite customer!”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Natasha said with a smile of her own as she and Pepper slid onto barstools at the counter.

The young man, Steve (according to the nametag on his crisp, blue pinstripe shirt), picked up two old fashioned milkshake glasses. “Only redheads.”

Pepper and Natasha glanced at each other. Pepper smiled coyly and took out her iPad. Natasha looked back at Steve. “We haven’t even ordered yet.”

Steve tweaked his bowtie as he posed dramatically with the glass. “A good scooper knows his customers. You, my dear, have a weakness for chocolate malts. Your friend likes vanilla milkshakes with extra rainbow sprinkles, and never, ever even let the shake breathe near the strawberries.”

Pepper raised her eyebrows. “I’m impressed. I think I’ve told my boyfriend six times that I’m allergic to strawberries, and he’s still surprised when I get mad that he buys the wrong jam.”

“Customer satisfaction rule number thirty-eight: remember allergies.”

He turned his back to them as he went to work. Pepper quickly typed something on the iPad, and then angled it towards Natasha. “ASK HIM. MAKE THE CALORIES WORTH IT”

She side-eyed her friend; they both did enough kickboxing to make up for the… Natasha winced as she realized just how often she came to the parlor. No wonder he recognized her, let alone remembered her usual order. Pepper was furiously typing again, and angled it towards her again. “SERIOUSLY. IF YOU DON’T, I WILL”

Natasha made a shooing motion with her hand, while asking Pepper aloud how her preparations for her MBA thesis were coming. Pepper gave her the evil eye, but launched into a detailed description of all of her plans for her final project. Getting the finer details correct was enough to distract her from the subject of the ice cream man; and Natasha had heard most, if not all of, these details at one point or another over the last several months. It allowed her to let Pepper’s voice become soothing background noise as she made noncommittal noises of concern or agreement, and Natasha could covertly keep an eye on Steve as he finished their shakes. He brought them over with a wink. Natasha smiled, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Pepper managed to squeeze in a word of thanks between two other ideas.

Pepper was in the final rundown of her thesis when Steve brought over the check; it was an old-fashioned parlor, no credit cards were accepted, and all the checks were written by hand. Natasha mouthed a ‘thanks’ as she took it. “Whenever you’re ready, just holler,” Steve said. “I’ve gotta run to the back real quick.”

She nodded. Pepper finished with a flourish as Natasha flipped over the paper. She blinked. Pepper, being Pepper, noticed. “What?”

Natasha showed her. In precise handwriting, there was only a note that read ‘ _Would you care to go out on the town this weekend? I’m off at 6 on Friday. Call me. –Steve_ ’ Below it was his phone number.

Pepper let out a little shriek of victory, and slapped Natasha’s arm. Natasha just grinned, shyly biting her lip.


	5. Title listed at the end notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end contain the theme (to keep from ruining the surprise) as well as a few triggers.

She’s curled high up in her perch. It’s dark; the lighting is spotty, and the fog is rolling in quite thickly. She keeps low, to avoid making herself a target. She has to use her ears more than anything else to track her enemies, but sometimes they’re stupid enough to let her see the scant light reflecting off their armor.

It’s easy pickings then.

There’s screams all around her, the screams of the dying, the wounded, the survivors full of regret. She tunes it out; she learned to long ago. Her emotions shut down hours ago, leaving her in a place of cold calm, with precision focus for the job at hand.

Her eyes detect movement in the dim light. Someone is stupid enough to raise their head above cover; she takes aim and pops off two shots in rapid succession: a kill shot, and a spare, in case she was foolish enough to miss the first time. She pulls herself back behind the safety of her hideout. She does some quick math in her head to determine how many remain. ‘ _Only two_ …’

“Where is she?”

She hears a voice, male, below her perch. She goes still; only those familiar with the terrain would know to look up, at alone find the hidden way to her hiding place. Another voice, this one also male, responds. “I saw her once, but she’s a ghost. She could be right behind us, and we’d never kno—FUCK!”

He’s down with a shot to the chest before he can say anything else. Natasha eyes the last man. She can’t see much, but he’s panicking, looking around helplessly. He never thinks to look up; his gun is also at his side. He’s too distressed to think to drop it. Her mouth curls into a wicked smile. She decides to toy with this one.

She fires off two shots, one to each hand. The man cries out, dropping his weapon. She slides down her perch soundlessly, dropping behind him. Her leg snaps out, sweeping his legs from under him. He lands hard; she shoots his legs. He can’t get up. He manages to turn over. She can see his eyes reflecting the scant light, his features twisted in fear. “Natasha… Please…”

“It was never just a game, Captain,” she whispers.

“Natasha!” He screams as she shoots his chest, point-blank.

**Miss Romanoff has captured a complete victory.** JARVIS’ voice echoes through the chamber, and the lights come up slowly.

“Jesus Christ, that was the scariest shit to watch,” Tony says from his seat on the floor.

Natasha tucks an errant hair behind her ear, only smiling. Clint gives her a high-five as he comes over from where he’d been sitting out for the last half-hour. “Nice shooting, kid.”

Steve gets to his feet; she notes that his hands are shaking slightly from the scare she gave him. “Holy shit.”

She reaches up and runs her fingers through his hair, and brings him down to kiss him on the cheek. “Sorry. I got caught up in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scenario: Domestic Avengers + battle to the death in laser tag
> 
> Trigger Warnings: guns, war games


	6. Mother's Day

“Daddy, Daddy, I hafta talk to you about a secret!” James yanked on the bottom of Steve’s shirt.

“What’s up, buddy?” Steve turned in his seat, bracing himself on his knees to get on eye-level with the five-year old.

The boy glanced across the table to his mother. “It’s a _secret_. Momma can’t know.”

Natasha hid a smile, and pretended to be very absorbed in typing up reports for Fury. The funny thing about kids was that they understood the idea of whispering, but most of the time they lacked the ability to put it to any use. James led Steve into the hallway; Steve returned alone five minutes later. “Mother’s Day is on Sunday,” Natasha commented, her voice laced with innocence.

“I’ve been pinky-promised not to tell,” Steve held up his hand to show his honor, “but I promise you that I’ll make sure nothing explodes.”

“I knew there was a reason I asked you to marry me.”

* * *

 

On Sunday, Natasha woke out of habit at dawn, when Steve did. She rolled over, propping herself up on one arm. Her husband was sitting on the edge of the bed running his hands through his hair sleepily. “Hey,” her voice was husky with sleep, “only I’m allowed to do that.”

He twisted, and smiled. He fell back on his elbow, and kissed her. “Good morning. Happy Mother’s Day.”

“Thank you. What are my orders, captain?”

“Your job is to stay in bed until James says so. It’s also preferable if you pretend to be asleep when we come in.”

Natasha wriggled back under the covers, her head sinking into her pillow. “I think I can manage that,” she said with a happy sigh.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Some days I don’t know if you love me, the kid, or the bed more.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I love the bed more. The bed doesn’t talk back to me. Although, if you stayed in it with me, I’d love you equally,” Natasha smirked.

He kissed her forehead. “As tempting as that is, neither of us wants the house destroyed. But I’m taking a rain check on that offer.”

She watched as he got up, threw a shirt and pajama bottoms on, and left their room. The actions reminded her that she should at least put a tank top on before she got too comfortable. Natasha did try to doze off again after donning the shirt, but her brain was awake at this point, and she knew better than to give in to that futile exercise. Instead, she grabbed her book off the night stand, and made it through two chapters before she heard the tell-tale noises in the hall of her boys coming to surprise her. She slipped the book back onto the table, threw the covers over her head, and pretended to be asleep.

The end of the bed dipped as James climbed up on it, and crawled up to the head. He pulled the covers back from over her head and lay next to her. “Momma, are you awake?” he ‘whispered’.

She opened one eye. “Steve, I think we need to call the exterminators. The bedbugs are getting too big.”

James burst into giggles. “Momma! It’s me!”

She wrestled him into a hug, and kissed the top of his head. “Hi monkey, what are you doing in my bed so early?”

“HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MOMMA!” He shouted; Natasha winced from the volume directly in her ear.

Steve set a tray over her legs as she sat up. “We maded you breakfast, Momma. Well… I pushed some buttons and cracked the eggs, but Daddy said I can’t use the stove yet. And Daddy said I hafta wait until I’m bigger to carry the tray, but it’s taking an awful long time,” James said as he sat against the headboard next to her. Steve slid in on the other side.

“French toast and eggs over-easy, my favorite. Thank you, monkey.”

Steve grabbed the bacon slices. “Good, because the bacon’s for me.”

She sipped at the coffee. James yelped and scrambled off the bed. “There’s a present too!”

He bolted out of the room in a flash; they still weren’t sure how many of their combined super-genes had been passed on to the boy, but he showed enough signs that they knew the answer wasn’t zero. “James, baby, breakfast was enough, you didn’t need to get me something,” Natasha shouted after him, glancing over to Steve; her husband couldn’t lie worth a damn, so his innocent face was just that: innocence.

James appeared in the doorway again, holding a clumsily wrapped box and wearing a pout. “But Uncle Clint said.”

Natasha’s eyebrows went up in understanding. “Did Uncle Clint take you out shopping, too?”

“Yuh-huh. And he showed me how to wrap a present.” The redheaded boy climbed back up on the bed and presented the box to her happily.

That explained the rest. Clint’s expertise lay in _un_ wrapping presents as gleefully as possible. Her brow furrowed as she started opening it; Clint’s expertise was also in presents the giftee wasn’t always thrilled with. She opened it with some trepidation, and found two things: the first was one of those kitschy “hopeful message” decorative boards she hated. This one had a little poem on it:

                _Good Moms Have_  
                                _Sticky Floors_  
 _Messy Kitchens_  
 _Laundry Piles_  
 _Dirty Ovens_  
 _And Happy Kids_

Natasha’s mouth gritted into a smile; Steve was turning purple with his effort not to laugh. The second thing was an obnoxiously yellow t-shirt with a woman in a pink bathrobe and pink curlers in her hair, and a speech bubble that read “I’m the Mommy, That’s Why”. James was beaming. “Do you like it, Momma? Uncle Clint said they would be _perfect_.”

She pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his head. “It was very thoughtful of you. Did Uncle Clint buy these?”

“He said it would be “his gen-u-ine plea-sure”,” James fumbled over the words.

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smothered laugh from Steve’s side of the bed; Natasha ignored him. “You know what? Why don’t you go get my phone, so I can call Uncle Clint and thank him myself?”

James beamed and bounced off the bed again. Steve managed to make it until James was out of earshot before succumbing to the laughter. “I will actually kill that man,” Natasha announced. “The worst part is, he can’t do it to you! You’d eat up all the stupid Father’s Day stuff. Golf pens, ties, World’s Number One Dad mugs…”

“That’s because I _am_ the world’s number one dad,” Steve wheezed, wiping tears from his eyes. “The look on your face…”

“Clint’s just lucky he’s in Mumbai and is only getting a middle-of-the-night wake-up call…” Natasha muttered. “Wait until he gets back…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Mother's Day! And yes, that's James Rogers from The Next Avengers movie. Awful movie, great for shipping fodder.


	7. Flight is Ridiculously Delayed

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rogers, there’s nothing we can do but wait. It’s a mechanical error, they’re fixing it as fast as they can,” the passenger service agent said.

Natasha pursed her lips but only thanked the woman before heading back to her seat; she was having enough trouble keeping all of the other passengers happy, adding to her woes wouldn’t make her job any easier. “We’re stuck,” she told Steve as she sat down.

“I told you. We just have to wait. It’ll be fine,” Steve didn’t even look up from his iPad; he was currently trying to beat Sam’s high score for that Candy Crush level.

Natasha leaned against him. “This is not how I envisioned the first night of our honeymoon…”

“We’ll still get our honeymoon, Nat.”

“Minus twelve hours or however long…”

“Hey,” Steve put down his game and lifted her chin to meet her eyes. “It’ll be fine. I know, you had to pull a lot of favors to get this much time off, and I am unbelievably grateful for it. And I will spend however many hours it takes to prove that to you,” his voice dropped, “even if it means we never leave the hotel room. And if having our flight delayed four or six hours means I have to spend eight or twelve extra hours making that up to you…”

He smirked, and went back to his game. She punched him in the arm before leaning against him again. “Sure, get me all hot and bothered…”

She got bored watching him take ages to decide on his moves (seriously, this wasn’t chess, Steve) and took out the book she’d brought in the misguided thought that she’d ever get any time to read over the next ten days. Another hour passed. The airline brought out the free drinks—Natasha was bitter about the lack of booze—seriously, it was her honeymoon! Sex and alcohol! If she wasn’t getting the former, she damn well better be getting the latter!

Somewhere around hour three of the delay, Natasha found herself on the floor, feet propped up on her seat, her book over her face. “The protagonist is a moron. Who wrote this book. Why was it approved. Who funded this.”

Steve squeezed her ankle gently; she jerked involuntarily—she was ticklish. “Why did you buy it, then?”

“I didn’t, I swiped it out of Pepper’s bookcase.”

“Then it serves you right,” Steve said, and then ducked as said book was whipped at his head.

Hour four saw Steve joining her on the floor. They both dozed off during hour five, and woke up in a panic during hour six. Once their personal belongings were accounted for, Natasha glanced at the clock and saw that it was now after midnight. “We’re never leaving this airport,” she declared.

Some of the other passengers had, at this point, opted for a rescheduled flight. Most of those passengers were the ones with children, so it was blessedly quieter than it might have been otherwise. Steve and Natasha had the gambler genes though: once you were in this long, you played until you were out. The jackpot would hit as soon as you left.

Natasha dozed, curled in the crook of Steve’s arm, as he thumbed through the BBC News app. “Attention, ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin boarding flight 689 to Santo Domingo. We appreciate your patience with the long delay.”

Natasha stirred. “What time is it?” She mumbled.

“Almost two.”

“Christ…”

“Eight hour delay… so that’s sixteen hours of making up we’ve got ahead.”

“You are annoyingly optimistic sometimes, you know that right?”

Steve kissed her nose before he sat up. “And you married me anyway.”

“Don’t think I won’t keep track.”

“I’m counting on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a few weeks since the last update; I'm actually working on a much longer chapter (not even halfway done and at 3k), but research and real life gets in the way of actually writing. Here's this small bit to tide you over until then. Thanks for reading!!


	8. Mermaids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by agentavengerassassin on Tumblr
> 
> Warnings down below, which contain spoilers (spoiler free version: this one is where the rating goes up)

She knew these waters well. The headland dropped quite sharply into the sea, the shallows littered with sharp boulders. There was one dock, near the base of the cliff that only the most experienced landsmen would scramble down on their ungainly human fins. Boats were useless in these waters, so the men only came to swim, or to try to catch fish.

The rocks gave her plenty of cover to listen to the stories of men. If their tales were true, the land of men was full of monsters twelve feet tall, all claws and shark teeth, and all of them somehow slain using only a stick and the largest rock a man could lift. Sometimes she’d wait until she knew they were silly from their drinks and give enough of a flash of her tail (black with orange fins) to give them cause to screech and gawk like seagulls—for there were tales about her too, and she liked to hear the misconceptions of the landsmen. The tales of merfolk who kept the souls of drowned men were her favorite. She wouldn’t know where to keep a drowned soul if she had one.

Sometimes, one would come alone. Maybe it was what the landsmen called a ‘bet’ (she heard that word often, and it often involved one of them doing something rather stupid for a reward) He would talk to her, and sometimes she came out of the water to talk to him. He would seem nice, and she’d feel a connection, a bond begin to form… but he’d never return after that one visit. She wondered if she was altogether uninteresting, that the men who talked to her never returned. Or perhaps she wasn’t as beautiful as the mermaids they thought they knew of.

What did men know about the merfolk, anyway?

Then, a new man. This man would only come alone. He came alone very often. His hair was the color of the sand on the shoreline, his eyes the color of the sea during a hurricane. He was small for a human man, but larger than she. He never said a word, only sat on the dock and watched the waves for hours. She would watch him too.

She wondered if he ever knew the sea could look back.

One day, some tides after this strange boy began his staring contest with the water, she spoke first. She’d never done that before. She stayed under the dock, asking if he was lonely.

He was.

She wondered if he wanted company.

He wouldn’t mind it.

Was he going to be very afraid of her?

_No_.

He said she was beautiful. She smiled at that; of course she was. She was more beautiful under the water, but he couldn’t swim.

What was a landsman doing, living near the sea when he couldn’t swim?

He was afraid.

The water was dangerous, she couldn’t fault him for that. Sharkfolk scars ravaged her chest; he turned a funny color and looked away when she gestured at her bosom. No man had done that before, but she realized that this one was still very young for a human.

They talked about her home, how he wanted to see it. She said that he could only see it if he learned to swim. He promised he would, just for her.

She didn’t see him for many tides. None of the other men who came to see if the mermaid of the headland was real were as intriguing as the one with sand-colored hair, so she left them alone. The stories of men were boring her now; she swam for miles every day, searching for something to sate her. She was impatient. How long did it take for one human to learn how to swim?

Finally, he came back. He was nervous, but he sat on the edge of the dock with his feet in the water. She smiled; he hadn’t noticed her teeth before.

How else was she supposed to eat?

She reached out for him. He reached for her. How far was it?

Not far. Maybe twenty leagues.

Maybe this one would stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is a red-tailed black sharkmaid.
> 
> Triggers: implied character death, implied murder of multiple characters


	9. Met on the Same College Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is also the AU where the GI Bill makes sense. I tried. I honestly did.
> 
> Thank you to romanoffsarcher for beta-ing this chapter!

The Tuesday they met held the promise of the summer to come. April is a funny month like that; it’s half-winter some years, and in others it’s almost July. This year had been mild, and this day in particular was perfect: sunny, warm in the sun but not too cool in the shade, cotton ball clouds in the sky that hinted at the storm the forecasts were calling for that night. Steve Rogers was sixteen, about to finish his junior year of high school, and thoroughly over this “let’s-spend-spring-break-on-college-tours” road trip his mom had planned.

To be entirely fair to his mom, they were only spending not even half of spring break on the tours. They’d already toured three state universities and two private ones, even though they could never afford private school on their own (“Oh, it doesn’t hurt to look, Stevie.” “But what if I love it? It hurts then. The G.I. Bill won’t pay forty grand a year for _art school_ , Mom.” “If you really love it, we’ll figure something out, sweetheart.”) This, the fourth state school, would be the last one before they went home, if their tour guide would ever show up. Steve fidgeted. His mom was absorbed in the latest round of pamphlets (they were the same for every school, he’d found, with different pictures and color schemes), and she’d made him leave his sketchbook in the car again, so he had no other choice but to look around at the others waiting for the tour to start.

The group contained four other teenagers, and about six other adults; one man would duck in and out of the room so often that Steve wasn’t sure if he was part of the group or not. There were two other guys around his age, one girl, and the last had their hood up on their jacket and he couldn’t see any obvious signs of gender—which might have been their point. The other teens were on their phones; Steve was apparently the only person over the age of fifteen in the country without a smartphone, something he was determined to rectify this summer. He was getting ready to get up and walk around the hallway to relieve the fidgets when a peppy blonde girl with a too-high ponytail bounced into the room and greeted them all cheerfully. She apologized profusely for the wait, and asked everyone to follow her for the start of the tour.

As they made their way through what the guide referred to as “Old Campus”, Steve found himself lagging at the back of the group as he took everything in. It was just after noon, so it seemed like a good portion of the students were either on their lunch breaks or just between classes. There were guys playing lacrosse, girls laid out on the lawns using their backpacks as pillows and doing their reading, skateboarders, hacky-sackers, guitars being played, faculty debating papers as they walked to the student union for Starbucks. “So, do you think they’re being paid to look like a brochure, or is this real life?” A low voice, female, asked on his left.

Steve glanced over; it was the kid with their hood up. Wavy red hair spilled out of it; the hooded green eyes cued him in to the bored tone of voice. “Aren’t you hot?” He asked, gesturing to the jacket.

A shrug was his answer. He glanced around again. “I dunno. It seems a little too perfect to be real, but I doubt they’d pay everyone to put on this kind of show. Leonberg didn’t do it, and they can definitely afford to.”

“The hell are you doing here if you can afford to look at Leonberg?”

“It was a strict look-but-don’t-touch trip. Mom insisted.”

A snort. “At least your mom cares. Mine’s off at some country club or other… The idiot who keeps vanishing on his cell phone is my dad.”

She must have meant the man he’d seen earlier, who was now leaving the group frighteningly often. “Is he always like that?”

“More or less. But he’s the one paying, so he gets the final stamp of approval or whatever…”

Steve could sense this would only continue to go south, so instead he said, “I’m Steve. Rogers. Steve Rogers.”

Their eyes met for the first time. “I’m Natasha. Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff,” she said. Her smile made him wonder what kind of secrets she had.

“So, uh… you have any serious plans yet, or are you just shopping around?” Steve asked as the tour group cut across one of the Frisbee lawns.

Natasha shrugged again. “My old man wants me to be an early decision, but at this point I couldn’t give a damn. I’ll probably tack all the brochures in a mess on the wall, toss a dart at ‘em, and apply to the only one it lands on.”

“You don’t have a specific program in mind?”

She just stared at the ground in response. Steve bit the inside of his lip, and listened to the guide talk about the ghost that haunted the theatre in the old University Hall. She mentioned at least four other supposed hauntings, including the chapel in Old Campus and one of the sorority houses, and Steve made a note to investigate these findings. Not that he was really into ghosts, but the stories often gave him interesting ideas for art projects. As they continued past the amphitheater, Natasha spoke again. “Are you shopping around? Or are you doing anything specific with your life?”

“Art school,” Steve said without hesitation.

He saw her look up at him out of the corner of his eye. “Seriously?”

“I’m good at it. I want to get better. I want to follow my passions.”

“And you’re not worried about starving to death after college.”

He just smiled. “I figure it’s worth it to do what I love, rather than hating myself for taking a safe path.”

“Oh.”

His mom looked back just then and smiled. He nodded in acknowledgement. She winked tilting her head slightly at Natasha. Steve turned red; Sarah Rogers smiled wider and looked ahead again.

The guide took them through a few residence halls, even a mockup dorm room. Then they went to the art buildings. Plural. Steve tried not to gape as the guide went on about the emphasis the university placed on the arts, both visual and performance. The music building was across the street, and the main fine arts building was to their right, but the building in the center was the latest addition to the arts program. It housed the larger concert halls for the performing arts students, as well as larger galleries and exhibition hall for the fine arts students, and now housed the digital arts program. They walked through the main fine arts building and Steve worked not to drool at the industrial kilns for ceramics, the furnaces for the glassblowers and the metal shop for the jewelry and sculpture students. His knees went weak at the old turpentine smell in the studios, the high ceilings and tall glass windows providing all kinds of light no matter what time of day. He was assured that as a fine arts student he would practically be living in this building, and that most students and professors had made it comfortable to nap between classes—even if that meant you had just finished your final at 6am and were presenting it at 8am.

Steve found himself rooted in place as the rest of the group began to leave the building. He stared up at the hanging sculptures, the collection of pottery, and the children’s books made by digital arts students in collaboration with an English class in the display cases.

He didn’t want to leave. He knew he’d found the right place.

“Steve? Honey, what’s the matter?” His mom was lingering behind him.

“I’m sorry I fought with you about this trip,” he said, feeling very far away.

She came to stand next to him, and hugged him around the shoulders. “Come on, sweetheart. We might as well see the rest of campus now; I have a feeling you won’t see a lot of it when you start.”

They left, and Sarah was wise enough to the ways of teenagers that she let him go and walked ahead of him as they hurried to catch up with the tour group again. The guide had stopped at the street and was talking about something else. Steve’s mind was back in the art building, and he wasn’t taking it in. There was a sharp jab in his side, and Natasha was looking at him expectantly. “You looked like you were in love.”

He smiled. “I might be.”

The group started moving again. “Well, congratulations. You’ve just decided where you’re going to spend roughly one hundred thousand dollars over the next four to six years.”

Steve gagged a little. “I’m so glad the government is paying for that…”

“Whoa, how’d you swing that?” Natasha asked.

“Dad died in Afghanistan,” Steve said; he tried not to sound so clipped or off-hand about it, but it was always a little bit weird to talk about his dad.

He missed her wince. “I’m sorry… That was really stupid of me.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago… I honestly don’t really remember him much.”

“So that makes you what… Seventeen?”

“Sixteen. My birthday’s in July.”

She actually patted his cheek, the tension breaking. “Aww, you’re a young’n.”

He scowled. “I’m still graduating next year. What about you, grandma?”

“My birthday’s in November, but I’ll be eighteen. So you’d better shape up, sonny, or I’ll have to take you over my knee.”

The wicked look she gave him made his face turn purple. She giggled as the group came to another stop. “This is the last stop for the arts program, rounding out our performing arts with the dance studios,” the guide was saying. “There are eleven studios and two gymnasiums that are shared with the cheerleading squad, dance corps, and winter guard.”

Natasha raised her hand. The guide pointed at her. “Yes! A question!”

“What kind of dance program do you offer here?”

Steve looked at Natasha in surprise. The guide beamed. “Excellent question! I don’t get many dancers in my groups, I’m actually a dance major myself! We have an extremely competitive program. We do have an audition process that begins in July…”

Natasha listened with rapt attention as their guide waxed poetic about the program. Steve snuck a curious glance in the direction of her father; he wasn’t on his phone for the moment, but he didn’t look very pleased about his daughter’s inquiry. Steve wondered how that conversation would play out later.

* * *

  
“And this concludes the tour!” The guide thanked them all with the same level of cheer she’d managed to keep up over the last ninety minutes. Steve still wasn’t sure if it was her natural state, or if she put on extra effort for work.

Sarah came over to her son. “Well, should we go look in the bookstore? Are you hungry?”

Steve shrugged. “I guess so. If you want to, anyway.”

Sarah looked at him skeptically. “You were doing so well at not being a teenager earlier… Come on, let’s go get something to eat; I'll drag you shopping after.”

“See you around, Steve Rogers,” Natasha called after him.

Steve looked back as he and his mom headed into the student union. He lifted a hand in goodbye. She returned the gesture as her father finished his phone call and came over to her, looking none-too-happy.

* * *

 

It was a long drive back home. Steve only had his learner’s permit, so he wasn’t used to driving for very long stretches; he was also partially night blind, and wasn’t allowed to drive after the sun started to set. His mom talked a lot, keeping them both awake as they entered the final stretch. They talked about scholarship deadlines and when they’d need to get in touch with the VA to get the ball rolling on the G.I. bill. Steve’s head was spinning by the time they made it back to their apartment complex. “I still don’t see why I need scholarship money if the government’s footing the bill…” He grumbled as his mom unlocked their door.

“Because it won’t cover everything. We’re lucky Sam was able to even transfer the benefits to you. There are plenty of scholarships available for military brats, we just have to talk to Sam about where to start looking,” Sarah said. There was a note of finality in her voice and Steve knew to let it drop.

This was a conversation they’d been circling around for longer than he knew his mother was comfortable with. Military benefits had undergone so much change in the past decade that it had taken a long time for the Rogers’ to get their proper dues from his father’s death in the war on terror. Even with his mom working as a registered nurse, things were tighter than she would have liked when Steve was growing up; Steve had known it, and had made the decision on his own to tighten his belt so they weren’t always strapped for cash. Sam had helped out when he could, but he had his own family to look after.

Sam Wilson had been an old buddy of his dad’s in basic training, and had done a lot of legwork for Sarah in getting the survivor’s package squared away. He’d made sure that Steve would be taken care of as a dependent. He went to work at the VA after his discharge, and had been around a lot for Steve’s growing up; his partner Mac and their young daughter Aisha were like family. It was a little strange to think that one of his best friends was a man who was literally old enough to be his father, but life was weird like that sometimes.

Steve’s phone rang. The little green-and-black screen let him know it was his other best friend, Bucky. He remembered that he had forgotten to text him to let him know he’d decided on a school. “Hey, man,” Steve answered. “Guess what?”

 

* * *

 

That summer, Steve and Bucky worked long and hard hours for Mac’s landscaping company. He hadn’t ever realized just how much work went into planting some trees and throwing some mulch around a garden. Some clients needed a week to get things just right. Steve would come home every night sore and sunburned, dirt stuck under his nails, feeling the ghosts of spiders crawling all over his skin (big spiders _really_ liked living in mulch, he’d discovered; he’d also discovered that Bucky _loathed_ spiders. The two discoveries were, surprisingly, related) He’d have enough energy to shower, eat whatever his mom put in front of him for dinner, and collapse into bed.

It was worth it at the end of the summer, though. Steve had managed to save a not insignificant amount of money, and purchase his iPhone. Bucky’s big purchase was a ’04 Ranger. In truth, it was Mac’s old pickup, and Bucky hadn’t _bought_ it so much as worked without pay for the entire summer in exchange for it, but he was proud of it anyway.

It was a wonderful thing, not going to school on the bus. The first day of school, Steve noticed that he was getting a lot of looks from the other students; Bucky had to point out that Steve had actually gotten buff over the summer. Between his sun-bleached hair, tan, and the wiry muscles, he was something of a looker. It helped later that, in December, he finally hit his growth spurt.

Mac kept them on during their senior year, helping with leaf collection, then snow removal, and then back into planting and landscaping through the spring and summer. Between school and working, the year melted away and he found himself in a scarlet graduation gown. He, Sarah, Bucky, and Bucky’s mom went dorm room shopping; Bucky, having no particular ideas about what he wanted to study, had applied to and been accepted at the same school Steve was going to. They weren’t allowed to live together (something about wanting the freshmen to expand their horizons or whatever, Steve had been too irritated to read more than that), but they at least were in the same dorm. Steve’s roommate was some guy named Tony Stark; Bucky’s was a guy named Clint Barton. Steve and Tony had e-mailed a few times to get to know each other. Tony was a mechanical engineering major, lived for rock music, and was a self-described womanizer. Steve had a feeling it was going to be an interesting year, to say the least.

 

* * *

 

Sarah smoothed his hair, unshed tears in her eyes, and hugged him again. Steve still thought it was weird that he was now taller than his mom, but hugged her fiercely in return. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, Mom, it’ll be fine.”

“It’s going to be so lonely without you, Stevie.”

“Mo-om…”

“I’m sorry, I know. You’re a grown man now. I should… I should go, and let you get yourself settled. Be safe. Have fun, but not _too_ much fun. Call me when you can, okay?” Sarah asked.

“I will. Be careful on the drive home. Call me to let me know you got home okay,” Steve told her.

Sarah laughed and swiped at her eyes. “I’m supposed to say that.”

She kissed his cheek, hugged him one last time, and maneuvered her way down the hall, past all of the other incoming freshmen. Steve fought the urge to run after her for one more hug, and went into his room. Tony hadn’t shown up yet, so Steve had been able to lay claim to a side of the room. His bed was already made, so he set about unboxing his clothes and putting them away.

Decoration-wise, he didn’t have much right now. A school pennant, part of the move-in package, was displayed above his bed, and a few art prints. His new MacBook was already on the desk; it was a graduation present from his mother, and a fight it had been to get him to accept it. (“You’ll need it for graphic arts, Stevie. I won’t hear another word for it, except ‘thank you’.”) He didn’t have any books yet; that was going to be a job for tomorrow, going to the library to pick up his borrowed textbooks. (What a relief that had been, finding out that you could just borrow seven hundred dollars’ worth of textbooks from any university library in the state) He did have a floor meeting at seven that night, followed by some kind of welcome party. Freshmen orientation started in the morning at nine. All in all, his first week looked like it was going to be an easy start before the reality of college set in.

There was a knock on his open door (which was already emblazoned with “STEVE” and “TONY” cutouts hanging on jungle vines, to match the floor theme of “College: It’s a JUNGLE Out There!”; Steve would have to have a word with the R.A. about what themes he was going to be choosing for the next few months). Steve looked up, and saw a girl in a black tank top and acid-wash cutoff shorts standing there. He blanched, and hurriedly shoved the stack of underwear he was holding into a drawer. “Uh, hi,” he managed to say, hating his voice for choosing that moment to crack. “Can I help you with something?”

There was a nagging sensation at the back of his mind as the girl, her curling red hair piled up on top of her head in a perky ponytail, tilted her head in observation of him. “You’re that kid from the tour. Roger or something, right?”

“Steve. Rogers, that’s my last name. You’re… Nadia?” Steve asked, his face screwed up as he tried to put a name to the face of the girl he’d only seen once, for ninety minutes, more than a year ago.

“Natasha.”

“Nat—right, oh man, sorry. Hey. Wow.”

“I told you I’d be seeing you around,” Natasha said, smirking as she leaned against his door frame, arms folded across her chest.

“You did. Yeah. So uh… you live on this floor too?” If that wasn’t the dumbest question he’d ever asked, he’d forgotten the dumber one.

Natasha didn’t comment on it. “Over on the girl’s half, yeah. I came around looking for the geeks setting up the internet, damn computer won’t connect. You haven’t seen one, have you?”

“About an hour ago,” Steve gestured to his computer, which was now hooked up to the campus internet. “They’ll be around again though, or maybe they’re with someone. Did you check the computer lab?”

Natasha’s eyebrows went up. “Ah, no. Good thought.”

She turned as if to go, but stopped. “Hey, what’s your Uni1000 class?”

Uni1000 was the freshmen orientation class; it was actually one of their regular classes, but the professor spent the first week getting everyone adjusted to university life instead of the course material. That would start the following week, when regular classes would begin. Steve picked up his schedule off the desk. “History of Japan, China, and India. You?”

A light bulb went off in his head at the smile she gave him; how had he forgotten that smile, the one that held a hundred secrets? “You want a wake-up call in the morning? We can grab something to eat before class.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

They traded numbers. She left then, resuming the search for a computer tech.

 

* * *

 

At 7:30 the next morning, his phone went off. Tony cursed loudly into his pillow. Steve blinked against the blinding light of the screen and saw a “Morning, meet by the elevator at 8 :)” text on the screen. “Jesus Christ on a hockey puck, don’t tell me this will be a regular thing,” Tony mumbled as Steve climbed down the ladder.

“Can’t make promises I can’t keep, Stark,” Steve said. He grabbed his shower bucket.

“Fuckin’ hell…”

“We’ve got class in an hour and a half anyway.”

“Which means I could have slept for eighty-five more minutes.”

Steve shook his head and hit the showers. He was ready and waiting by the elevator by 7:56. Four minutes later, on the dot, Natasha came strolling down the hallway with another redheaded girl; she was taller than he was, which would have been intimidating enough without the scrutinizing once-over she gave him as they came to a stop in front of him. “Hi,” Steve managed to keep his voice level.

“Hey. Steve, this is my roommate, Ginny Potts. Ginny, this is Steve,” Natasha said, pressing the elevator button.

Ginny nodded. “Hi. Any Harry Potter jokes are unwelcome, by the way. I got here first.”

“Understood. Nice to meet you.”

“Her class is in the BA building too, so she’s gonna grab food with us,” Natasha said.

The elevator dinged its arrival. A voice shouted from down the hall, “WAIT UP, ASSHOLE!”

Steve turned as Tony hopped down the hall, trying to get his shoe on the rest of the way. “I thought you were going to sleep for another hour,” the blonde man said as his roommate got onto the elevator with them.

“I’m fuckin’ starving,” Tony grumbled, running his fingers through his still-wet hair.

Ginny and Natasha traded looks. “Friend of yours?” Natasha asked.

“This is my roommate, Tony. He’s a self-described womanizer, so I feel it’s my job to warn you ahead of time.”

“Yo! Bros before hos, man!”

“This only furthers my desire to warn every woman on campus about you. Tony, this is Natasha and that’s Ginny.”

“From Harry Potter? Knew you’d turn out to be as tall as your brothers.”

Steve glanced at Ginny; her jaw was clenched, her lips pursed. “That’s really funny, you know. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Really? You’d think it’d be common,” Tony said, oblivious to the icy tone in her voice.

“Yeah, maybe about as often as you get someone’s foot up your ass,” Ginny said.

Steve choked back laughter. Tony’s not-quite-awake brain seemed to register that he’d said something wrong, as he kind of gaped at her for a moment before responding with, “Not as often as you’d think, most people don’t go for that kind of kinky fuckery.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“You’re a bit of a spitfire in the morning.”

“You’re a bit of a dick in the morning.”

“Sweetheart, I’m more than a bit of a dick at all hours of the day or night. I’d be very happy to show you how true that statement is in every nuanced detail.”

This was the longest elevator ride in the world for only going down six floors. Natasha was pointedly looking at the ceiling. Steve was slowly shuffling out of the range of fire if Ginny decided to deck his roommate. She looked about ready to, when they finally slowed and the doors opened. “Oh, thank God…” Steve mumbled as Ginny stormed out of the elevator.

“Chicks, huh?” Tony asked.

“No, I’m pretty sure that should be the baseline reaction for you,” Steve said.

“We’ve known each other not even a full day, man; don’t make too many rash decisions.”

“I’m not, but I’m making a mental note to never be around you and women again.”

“Good luck with that one.”

Tony’s Uni1000 class was on the other side of campus, so he opted to ditch them for a dining hall closer to class. Ginny was visibly happier about this arrangement, and Steve breathed a little easier. After bagels and cereal, they made the short walk over to the BA, where Ginny left them for her Intro to Business class. Steve and Natasha debated about where they should sit in the class; Natasha wanted to sit in the back for maximum snarking opportunities, but Steve knew he couldn’t pay attention back there, and yet Natasha said that sitting in the front made you a target for everyone. They finally settled on third row seats in the small lecture room.

The class itself turned out to be less of a class and more of an eight-hour-with-breaks-for-snacks-and-the-bathroom icebreaker. They played weird games that got them to talk about themselves and what they expected out of college. Steve had to admit that he didn’t know what he expected, he was just here because his mom told him he had to go to college, and he was going to do what he loved if that was the case. The professor then said something that would stick with him for years to come: “You’ll be surprised, Steve, to find out that going into something with no expectations will often be the best decision you’ll ever make, either consciously or unconsciously.”

He found out that Natasha’s father was a diplomat, and so she had been born and lived in Russia for the first eight years of her life. (He would also find out that because of this, Natasha would claim that she was Russian. On her 21st birthday he would find out that she would claim this made her unable to get drunk. All of these claims would be incorrect) She expected to ‘waste’ as much of her father’s money as she could to do something _she_ wanted to do, rather than what _he_ wanted her to do, and enjoy herself while she did it. She sat back and gave him a little smirk when she was done.

The girl’s wing of their floor had a group bonding dinner that night, so Natasha bid him farewell after class was over. Steve met up with Tony and Bucky, and Bucky’s roommate Clint; Tony dragged them downtown to “get a feel for the nightlife”. “Stark, it’s not even six on a Monday. _What_ nightlife?” Clint asked.

“Okay, it’s this or shitty dorm food. You pick.”

They picked a bar. Tony mumbled something about a fake ID, but the townies knew only freshmen were in town right now. Still, the food was good. They bullshitted about life, and about an hour later the Indians were playing the Dodgers on the big screen above the bar, so Steve was happy. Neither Clint nor Tony knew much about baseball, (Clint claimed to be a hockey fan, and Tony said he’d rejected the notion of sports at an early age), so Steve and Bucky explained the finer details of the game between having one-sided arguments with the ref about calls. “Man, I don’t get it,” Clint said, downing his soda. “No one’s getting the shit beat out of them, so what’s the point?”

“Some of us weren’t raised in a barn, Barton,” Bucky grinned.

“Circus tent,” Clint corrected. “Just wait until October, and I’ll introduce you to the finer points of the gongshow.”

Bucky raised his glass in acknowledgement, and Steve berated the ref for calling a ball obviously in the strike zone. Bucky chuckled, “I’ll warn you, October’s postseason and the Series. If you can get Steve to listen around all that, I’ll buy you a beer.”

Clint’s grin was lopsided. “I’ll take that bet.”

 

* * *

 

They left during the seventh inning, with the Dodgers in a comfortable lead over the Indians, and made their way back to campus. Bucky and Tony were arguing about music as Steve pressed the elevator button. “If you don’t think Stevie Nicks is one of the best singers of the last fifty years, I don’t even want to _know_ you,” Bucky was saying as Tony’s attention wavered as about ten girls came up to them.

“Argument pause. Hello, ladies,” Tony grinned and then winced as Steve smacked him upside the head.

“Leave them alone.”

“So this is an all-day thing, huh?” Ginny asked, off to the side of the group.

“Looks that way,” Steve answered.

“See if I ever wingman for you, Rogers,” Tony grumbled, rubbing his head.

“He’s got me for that, brah,” Bucky grinned, and winked at the girls.

Steve backhanded Bucky on the chest as the elevator doors opened. Bucky wheezed slightly, winded, as Steve passed him. “I refuse to associate with the pair of you.”

Clint, wisely staying out of it, joined Steve on the elevator. Natasha shadowed Ginny, and a few other girls pushed ahead of Bucky and Tony, filling it before they could get on. Ginny gave an exaggerated wave as the doors closed. “I’ll hold if you wanna punch,” Natasha offered.

Steve laughed in surprise. “Nah, it won’t come to that. At least with Bucky… Verdict’s out on Stark.”

“Nothing wrong with wooing the ladies,” Clint said. “Just don’t be a weirdo about it.”

“Thank you,” Ginny said. A few of the other girls echoed the sentiment.

“Ginny, this is Clint. He’s roommates with my friend Bucky, the other idiot down there. Clint, don’t mention Harry Potter if you like breathing. And this is Natasha.”

Clint gave a mock salute. “Pleasure. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

Steve missed the once-over Natasha gave him. The doors opened and they all piled out. “We’re gonna set up Mario Kart in the lounge if anyone wants to join!” Clint called.

In the end, Steve, Clint, Tony, and Bucky were joined by Natasha and Ginny, as well as a girl named Maria. They set up tournament rules, and played until well after midnight. Natasha had actually dozed off with her head on Clint’s lap by the time Ginny won the last race (Tony blamed the vertigo induced by playing on Rainbow Road). Ginny practically dragged her back to their room. “I’ll text you in the morning!” Steve called after them. Natasha lifted her hand in acknowledgement.

“Leave off the hot peppers first thing tomorrow, Weasley!” Tony said.

Ginny lifted her middle finger. Tony chuckled. They had each other’s measure by now, as only everyone who competes to the death in Mario Kart can.

 

* * *

 

After freshman week, they all established a pattern for their days. Steve, having scheduled most of his classes in the afternoons, found himself at the rec center in the mornings. Sometimes Bucky or Tony joined him, most of the time they slept in. Steve would have slept in as well, but for one of his art classes being scheduled for 9:30, with a long gap after. After a few weeks, it was more or less a habit.

Sometimes Natasha and Maria joined him for lunch in the student union. (Ginny had meticulously scheduled her classes with only a short break for lunch at 1:30, after most of the lunch rush, and when the rest of them were already in class) Occasionally, Clint would join them, but seeing as how it was usually noon, and his first class wasn’t until 1:30, he was usually asleep. When he did see Clint, it was usually in line at Starbucks with Natasha.

As Tony was an engineering student, Steve expected him to be more studious, but this usually wasn’t the case. Every Friday night without fail, he was dragging them out to bars downtown. Sometimes in the middle of the week as well, if he’d had a particularly stressful class—for that was how Tony blew off steam: swindling underage drinks, dancing with girls, and sharking upperclassmen at pool. What he hadn’t counted on was Steve being absolutely abysmal at chatting up girls. “You can talk to Pepper and them fine! What gives!?” Tony asked him one night in the bathroom.

“First of all, she hates it when you call her Pepper.”

“She doesn’t hate _it_ , she hates _me_. There’s a difference. And at least I stopped calling her Weasley.”

“Second of all, they’re my _friends_. There’s no _expectations_! You want me to flirt, to be… _you_! I can’t do that!”

“Padawan. Grasshopper. This is why you’re with me. To watch and learn from a master,” Tony grasped Steve’s shoulders. “Come on. When’s the last time I had a drink tossed in my face?”

“Last week,” Steve rolled his eyes.

“And what did I do wrong?”

“Where do I even start…”

“Ah, but you have a list. So don’t do any of those. You’re cute, kid, just stop stammering like an idiot. I’ll give you some liquid courage,” Tony held up his flask, which he’d smuggled in.

Steve shook his head. “No. I’ll talk to a girl, but it’s on my terms.”

Tony shrugged, and took a swig. “Suit yourself, dude.”

He was mostly grateful that if he did get lucky, Tony would spend the night at the girl’s place. He wasn’t sure how he’d handle that, though Bucky and Clint would probably let him crash on their futon.

October came, and with it Clint taught them the finer points of hockey. Steve barely paid attention, too caught up in the baseball postseason. Tony ignored both of them. Steve did remember a few things when Clint gave them a pop quiz on the subject, so Bucky had to find a way to buy him a beer. Before any of them knew it, it was Thanksgiving break. Steve and Bucky spent the weekend at home; Steve helped his mom get their apartment ready for Christmas, as was their usual tradition. She, and Bucky’s mom, sent them back to school with a bag of leftovers each, and the thought of their finals in two weeks looming over their heads.

Even Tony buckled down over the next two weeks; Steve hardly saw him. Not that he was spending much time in their room either, coming home from the art building mostly to take a shower and change his clothes before going back, or changing locations to the library to study or work on his papers.

The Saturday before finals week saw a mass text message from Natasha: “Skybar tonite or my brain WILL EXPLODE >:(” The feeling was mutual. Even Ginny, who wasn’t much for going out, came, claiming that she would start screaming if she had to look at her econ book one more time.

Technically, two of Steve’s finals were already done (art finals were always due the week before, he had been told, and he’d pick up his results during the scheduled “exam time”), but his brain was already feeling like it was made of marshmallows. He vowed to stay far away from Tony trying to woo anyone; he wasn’t in the mood to wingman, or fall on any so-called “grenades”. He was going to throw darts, maybe dance a bit, and forget that he was absolutely going to fail his other three exams.

Ginny ended up dragging him on the dance floor. Maria was doing something that maybe resembled dancing, and she punched Steve in the shoulder when he started laughing. Bucky, not far away, grinned at him over the shoulder of a petite brunette he was dancing with. To prove that he wasn’t much better at dancing than Maria, Steve did the Macarena. She grinned, and shoved him. He responded by discoing. “PEPPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” Tony shouted over the music, wobbling over to them and slinging an arm over Steve’s shoulder. “There’s my girl, you’ve been, you’ve been avoiding me!”

“Stark, you’re drunk as fuck,” Ginny shouted back at him.

“No’m not! Vodka’s like water, it doesn’t do nothing to you!”

“Who gave you vodka?!”

Steve knew where Tony kept his flask; he dug in the back pocket of his jeans. Tony yelped. “No homo, dude, fuck you doing?!”

“Shut the hell up,” Steve scowled, giving Ginny the flask. It was empty; she put it in her handbag.

Tony staggered, almost taking Steve down with him. He didn’t look too hot. “I’m taking him to the bathroom!” Steve yelled.

“I’m fine, douchebag,” Tony slurred.

“Yeah, you’re not.”

They barged into the bathroom, and right in on Clint and Natasha making out; Clint’s hand was under Natasha’s skirt. Steve froze. Tony started laughing. Clint and Natasha separated quickly, Natasha tugging on the hem of her miniskirt. She didn’t meet his eyes, and hurried past him. Clint scratched at his neck. “Is he alright?”

Tony wasn’t managing most of his own weight. “Not really,” Steve said. “He brought his flask. Plus whatever he swindled out of someone.”

“What’d he have this time?”

“Vodka.”

Clint groaned. “Dude…”

“M’fine…”

“Let me help you with him…”

Steve didn’t know why he felt so weird at catching Clint and Natasha. It wasn’t his business, after all. If they liked each other, have at it. He was glad for them. Wasn’t he?

 

* * *

 

It was Friday, he’d just picked up his last final grade, and he was getting ready to leave, when Natasha found him. “Hey,” she said.

Steve put down his suitcase. “Hi.”

“Have you been avoiding me?”

He blinked. “No…”

“Liar. I’ve tried calling you and texting you since last weekend.”

Steve grimaced, and held up his phone; the screen was shattered. He’d dropped it, and someone had stepped on it at the bar last weekend. “I must have forgot to mention it… I’m taking care of it over break.”

Natasha huffed, and crossed her arms tightly. “Asshole… look, I’m sorry about the way you…”

“Don’t mention it,” Steve said hurriedly. He didn’t want to hear her say the words. He still wasn’t sure why it was weird, but he didn’t want her to say it anyway. “Really, I should have knocked, but Tony…”

“Yeah. Well… I’m not sure what’s going on with Clint, but I know I didn’t want to say anything or make it weird with the group. You know?”

Steve didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Yeah. No, it’s fine. Really, I shouldn’t even be surprised. You two are at the coffee place all the time together.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Because Barton’s not a functioning human being without coffee, and he can’t even get out of bed without someone hounding him…”

Steve chuckled. Natasha softened, her arms loosening. “We okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”

This time it was she who didn’t meet his eyes. “I dunno, I just… Don’t scare me like that. Get your fuckin’ phone fixed.”

“I will. First thing tomorrow,” he promised.

Bucky came in, whistling. “Come on, Rogers, if we want to beat the snow home!”

“Coming!” Steve called. He looked at Natasha again. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

She touched his arm, giving him a half-smile. “Merry Christmas, Rogers.”

 

* * *

 

They had a very quiet Christmas break. Steve got a new phone. Bucky got snow tires on his truck. They both spent quite a bit of time working for Mac again. Steve didn’t realize how sullen he was being until his mom sicced Sam on him the day after Christmas. “Your mom’s worried, kiddo. Did something happen at school?” Sam asked as he beat Steve at Mario Kart again.

Steve sighed, putting down the controller. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“Relationship trouble?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“How would you put it then?”

“We all went out the weekend before finals. Tony got smashed. I took him to the bathroom. I found my friends Natasha and Clint making out.”

Sam made the annoying noise that adults made when they knew they were right about something. “And you’re down about it.”

“Why, though? I should be happy they’re together. I don’t have a claim to anyone.”

“Steve, you don’t need me to tell you why you’re upset about it,” Sam said.

Steve said nothing, only picked up his controller again. They played through another cup race before he said, “I guess I thought… we found each other. Often. Unexpectedly. And I thought… I thought maybe there was a little more than that.”

“That’s the romantic in you talking, kid. But a realist would look at that and wonder why you didn’t act on it.”

Steve shrugged. “I guess I didn’t want to ruin a friendship...”

“Well… you’re gonna get that with anyone. Someone you meet at a bar that you’re never going to see again, someone you’re friends with. You just gotta have courage.”

“Yeah, I’m a little low on that at the moment…”

Sam nudged him. “Well, then, the most you can do is just be happy for them. Be a good friend. You’ll move on eventually.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so instead he just picked the next cup race.

 

* * *

 

With this newfound realization of a crush on Natasha, Steve was determined to bury his feelings and be happy for her and Clint. When the new semester started, he threw himself into his schoolwork with gusto; when he saw them, he was too tired to feel anything other than ‘yay friends are here, friends mean no work’. He went out with everyone on the weekends, and kept his nose to the grindstone during the week.

This act lasted until mid-February, when Ginny of all people called him out on it. “Steve, did you really do that badly last semester? You’re going to be dead by spring break at this pace.”

“Huh? No, I did… fine. Mostly B’s, a few A’s.”

“So why the sudden me-like enthusiasm for the library?”

Steve sighed, and then looked to make sure they were alone. “Look, keep this quiet, alright? I’m just… I’m a little jealous about Natasha and Clint, alright? So I’m just trying to do my best to forget about it.”

“Wait, Natasha and _Clint_? I thought she… Oh my God, I’m going to _kill_ her!” Ginny gasped.

“Wait, you don’t _know_?” Steve asked, incredulous.

“How did _you_ know?!”

Steve replayed, with minimal details, about what had happened last semester. Ginny huffed, looked peeved. “So that’s where she’s been… She keeps telling me she’s training in the dance center. She’s probably off macking on the carnie.”

“Clint’s not a carnie.”

“You haven’t heard his detailed list on things that can be fried and still be edible, then.”

He sighed. “I have. I still don’t understand the strawberries… Anyway, just keep it quiet. If you didn’t know, then they definitely want this on the DL. I don’t even think Tony remembers. But that’s why.”

Ginny peered at him, curious. “So which one are you jealous of? I can’t get a read on you, you know, and my gaydar’s pretty good.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Says every straight girl.”

“So it’s Clint.”

“It’s not, I’ll have you know. Not that I wouldn’t, but he’s not it.”

If the look she gave him had been pity, he would have gotten up and walked away. Instead, she covered his hand with hers briefly, and then went back to her own studying. Steve tried to, but found it hard to concentrate.

 

* * *

 

Tony had offered his parents’ beach house in Florida for spring break, but Steve wanted nothing more than to sleep in his own bed for a week. He probably could have used a week on the beach, but he missed his mom. As penance, Tony had said, he would have to come down for a week in the summer. Steve had agreed.

The rest of the school year went by in a blur. The first Saturday in May, Tony surprised the hell out of all of them by making them watch the Kentucky Derby all day. Steve watched over his laptop (he had an English final due on Monday) as Tony explained how betting worked, the breeding of the horses, and what made the races interesting to begin with. Clint called it a rich kid’s sport. Tony responded with a list of all the fights they’d had to watch during hockey season, which wasn’t even over yet because it was playoffs. “That’s the thing about poor kids’ sports though. They’re _fun_ ,” Clint said, grinning.

Still, Clint was shouting louder than all of them when the Run for the Roses happened.

Soon enough, they were packing up their rooms and heading home for the summer, which went by even faster than the last semester; Steve managed to get enough time off from Mac to hang out with Tony in Florida for a week, where Tony tried to teach him how to surf. It didn’t go well. When they came back in the fall, Steve and Tony were in an upperclassmen’s dorm, sharing a suite with Bucky and Clint. Clint and Natasha were finally public about their relationship, which meant that Natasha hung out in their suite often.

People often said that sophomore year was the hardest, and Steve soon found out that this was true. Natasha being in their suite all the time turned out not to be much of a problem, as he was spending most of his time in the art building. More often than not, he was fighting someone else for the good couch to take a nap while the paint dried on one of his paintings. Ginny was the first of their group to have a mental breakdown, in the middle of October; she took more classes than any of them, and had a work-study job in the library. She simply vanished one Thursday. Everyone was worried sick about her, until she called around dinnertime on Friday and said she was sitting on a beach up in Michigan because her car had broken down and could someone please come get her?

Bucky went, with Tony of all people going with him. Steve, Maria, Natasha, and Clint stayed up all night waiting; it was a good six hours to where Ginny had said she was, plus the drive back. They put on movies, mostly for some kind of noise, because none of them were talking.

Around five in the morning, Natasha and Steve were the only ones awake. Steve kept checking his phone, wondering if it was a bad idea to call one of them to make sure everything was fine, or if he’d distract one of them from driving. Natasha lifted her head up. “Promise me if you break, you’re not going to run away,” she said quietly.

“As long as you promise the same thing.”

“I can’t do this again.”

“Me neither.”

“She won’t drop any of her classes, but they’re making her crazy.”

“I know.”

“And maybe… I haven’t really…” She drifted off, her fingers combing Clint’s hair.

Steve recognized the tone of voice. “Hey. You’re not supposed to babysit her. We’re all adults, whatever that means. You’ve got your own thing going on.”

“What if there were breaking signs, and I missed them because I was here all the time?”

“She should have voiced them. At least she just drove six hours north, instead of something worse.”

“You’re awful at pep-talks, you know.”

“Yeah. But at least I’m not pitying myself for something I couldn’t prevent,” he challenged.

She said nothing, only combing Clint’s hair.

They got home around eight in the morning. Bucky waved off everyone’s questions and went to bed; Tony did the same. Natasha and Maria took Ginny back to their suite; Clint and Steve looked at each other and shrugged, and went to bed too.

Whatever had happened wasn’t really talked about after. Ginny, who started to go by Pepper after the incident, dropped two of her classes, and started to go to campus counseling at Natasha’s urging. In November, Pepper said that while she was probably going to be in school for the rest of her life, she was going to only take five classes a semester, and at her advisor’s insistence, one of them would be a “fun class”. “You know. Underwater basket weaving. Something that might come in handy one day, but not related to my major, so I won’t be too stressed about it.”

The other thing that happened as a result of the incident was Natasha breaking up with Clint; Clint understood why. Tony had expected some kind of meltdown, but Clint was chill about it. “We’re still friends, and I totally get it. Pepper needs someone else around. I’d do the same if one of you guys lost it.”

“I’m touched, but no way would I give up getting laid for a friend,” Tony grumbled.

Clint shook his head. Steve mouthed ‘daddy issues’ to Bucky, who nodded.

Fall semester rolled into spring, and they all went to Tony’s beach house in Florida for spring break again. Tony teased both Pepper and Natasha for the SPF 50 they were using, until they knocked him down into the sand, yelling about hair color and skin pigment. Steve only chuckled from his spot under an umbrella, sketching the entire incident.

That summer, Tony was the only one to move into the house he was going to share with Steve, Clint, and Bucky; the others had to work at home to save up rent money. Tony spent his time taking extra classes and sending text messages about all the sex he was having in their respective rooms. Steve only believed about a third of them.

Pepper and Steve took a beginner’s glassblowing class together that fall; they often signed up for shop cleaning shifts together. She would get exasperated with how often he asked her how she was doing. “I know you guys mean well, but between this, and how often Tony calls…”

“He calls?” Steve asked, surprised.

“Like, four times a day.”

Steve frowned, his hand slowing as he wiped one of the pipes. “Really?”

Pepper blinked, swatting a loose strand of hair away. “Yeah. Why?”

“He just… he doesn’t mention it.”

“He wants to talk for an hour or something, but he never remembers my schedule… If I have to leave for class, he calls immediately after.”

“He’s worried about you.”

“It was a year ago. I’m better now.”

“Yeah but…” Steve took a new pipe. “Why’d you start going by Pepper, anyway? I thought you hated it.”

She paused for a moment. “I… I dunno. When Tony and Bucky came and got me… I was a mess, right? I’m freezing on some beach in Michigan, and I’ve been crying, and my hair’s a mess, mascara all down my face… Bucky stopped at a Cracker Barrel so I could wash my face and they bought me a jar of that apple pie filling they sell and I made myself half-sick eating it on the way home… And this whole time, Tony’s just going on and on about how this wasn’t the Pepper he knew; she was full of fire and rage and well… pep. Because he’s Tony, and he talks until his teeth fall out, because he doesn’t know how to have a real emotion, or how to react when someone else is having one.

“And somewhere along the way I realized, yeah, I don’t like being like this. I need to be something new. Someone new. Names have power, right? So I took ownership of that. I’m Pepper Potts, and if you don’t want to get burned, get the hell out of my way.”

Pepper was staring out the window. Steve wanted to draw her more than anything else; her ponytail falling out, soot smutches covering her freckles, the intense look of a thousand emotions across her face. She was beautiful, and he knew immediately why Tony was calling her four, five times a day.

 

* * *

 

One morning in April, Steve was asleep on the good couch in the art building. Someone poked him. He woke up slowly, and then panicked when Natasha’s face was inches from his own. “Jesus, Nat.”

“Sorry. Clint said this is where I’d probably find you.”

“S’alright… what time is it?”

“After eight.”

“And you’re alive?”

“Clint is very nice to me in the mornings,” Natasha said loftily, and sat down on his legs. “It’s about Tony.”

“Oh, God, what happened. Is he in jail? The hospital?”

“Neither, surprisingly, but that’s what I’m trying to prevent. Since we managed to get through the other twenty-first birthdays without incident, I was hoping we could do the same for his,” she said, glaring at him when he snorted at the mention of her birthday. “My birthday went fine, thank you very much.”

“Says the person who doesn’t remember half of it.”

“If you’re referring to the—”

“Not that, the second time.”

“I’ll have you know it was completely within the realm of possibility that I could—”

“ _Okay_ ,” Steve drawled. “Next time you want to play Coyote Ugly, though, remember that I’m not always going to be there to catch you when you fall off the bar.”

“Ridiculous. You’ll always be there to catch me,” she scoffed.

Her face fell a little. Steve shifted slightly, so his hand was now under his head. “Hey…”

“Nothing. So, Stark’s birthday. End of next month. We’ll all be in town. We should figure out a way to do this in a controlled setting, so he’s not going wild with his newfound abilities.”

“We’ll just go to Downtown or something, and confiscate his cards, and make sure he can’t open a tab,” Steve said. “Or, better, tell the bartenders to cap the tab at fifty bucks or something. His dad’ll appreciate a low credit card bill for once.”

“Well, if _you’ve_ got all the answers…”

“Sorry, I just think he’s going to want to go out and party. And I don’t want to clean up a house party.”

She eyed him sidelong. He swallowed hard. “I’m going to regret that come my birthday, aren’t I?”

“Steve, your birthday’s on the 4th of July. You were never going to escape it.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll keep Clint away from the fireworks and the barbecue.”

“How much of this do you already have planned?”

She only smiled that secret smile of hers.

 

* * *

 

It turned out that the only person they _didn’t_ need to worry about on Tony’s birthday was Tony. Clint got kicked out of the bar for starting a fight over the NHL playoffs (he was passionately against the Kings), so they had to go elsewhere. At the next bar, Pepper punched someone for groping her; they left mostly to go ice her hand, but also because Steve was thrown out for holding the guy for her. Bucky got cut off in bar three for doing shots with anyone who asked, and he was in the bathroom puking for a while. And at the end of the night, Natasha’s credit cards were all declined, causing her to get into a huge fight at two in the morning on the phone with her father.

They were all on the street when she hung up. Bucky was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against a light pole. Tony, who had been drinking lightly for such a birthday, was re-wrapping an ice pack around Pepper’s hand, scolding her for her poor punching form. Natasha kicked a rock across the street, and shuffled back. “I’m cut off. He’ll pay for my part of the rent, and for school… but only if I change my major.”

“Why’d he pick tonight, of all things?” Steve wanted to know.

“He must have looked at what I’ve been paying for. Nothing bad, just… lots of party-prep stuff… He thinks I’m not taking my time in college seriously enough. He thinks I’m going to ruin my life by doing what I love doing…” Natasha said.

He’d never seen her cry before, but she looked closer than he’d ever thought she might be. Steve hesitated, then put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned against him; he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “It’ll be okay. We’ll… We’ll figure out some way.”

“I can’t change now. I’m going to be a senior. I’ll be in school for years if I change now.”

“You can keep me company,” Pepper said, smiling weakly to show she was joking.

“Pep, I love you, but this is not the time.”

“I know, I know…”

Clint cleared his throat. “It’s late, and Jamie boy here is going to pass out on the street. We can figure this out just as easily at home as we can here on a street corner.”

He and Tony had to lift Bucky between them to get him back to the house. Steve kept his arm around Natasha. The girls crashed at their place for the night. Tony remarked that a truly good birthday would have ended with the three of them in his bed, but he was assaulted with pillows before anything else could be said.

* * *

 

 

Steve woke up the next morning to someone clattering around in the kitchen. He wandered downstairs in a cutoff and his boxers, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “It’s not even noon, the hell’s going on…”

Natasha was rummaging in a cupboard. “You guys have zero food in this house.”

“Ever hear of breakfast?” Pepper asked.

“It’s a foreign concept around here. Be glad we even have a kitchen table. How’s your hand?” He asked.

She held it out for him to see. “Nice bruises. You think it’s broken anywhere?”

“No, but if the swelling doesn’t go down I’ll go have it looked at.”

Maria lifted a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator, opening it hesitantly. “How long have these been in there?”

“I bought them the other day, I’ll have you know.”

“Workout protein?”

“You got it.”

“Good boy.”

Natasha slammed the cupboard shut. “Nothing else. I hope everyone likes eggs.”

Over breakfast, Steve faced the elephant in the room. “So… what are we gonna do about your dad?”

“We?” Natasha asked. “We’re going to do nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

“Nat, we can help you,” Pepper said.

“The day one of you guys can convince Nikolai Romanoff of anything he hasn’t already convinced himself of is the day they carve your face on Mount Rushmore,” the dancer muttered.

Maria pointed at her with her fork. “You could try to compromise.”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

The brunette rolled her eyes. “So teach the old dog a new trick. What’s he want you to major in?”

“Politics. Business. Something he thinks is _useful_ ,” Natasha punctuated her feelings by stabbing the yolk of her next egg.

“What are you going to do with a dance degree?” Pepper asked. “We’ve known each other for years, but you haven’t ever given me a solid answer on this. Yes, it offers you steady training, but what’s your actual five year plan?”

Natasha’s jaw clenched, and Steve started to look for something to hide behind before she said, “I don’t know what I want to do, nothing that’s realistic. I want to perform. I want to be on stage. And that’s it. Whatever it takes to get there, I guess.”

Steve, Pepper, and Maria traded looks. Natasha saw. “Don’t you start on it too. No one’s ragging on Steve to do something realistic with his life, and he’s a fuckin’ _fine arts major_.”

“Steve’s putting a portfolio together for internships with animation companies though,” Pepper said. Steve ducked his head; he’d been keeping quiet about that, only asking Pepper for advice on such things because that was what one did when they were around Pepper. “He’s got a few plates spinning. If you can’t get with a company, what’s your next move? If you do get into a company, what happens if you get hurt? If you want to retire at thirty-five?”

Pepper was being hard, and walking the line between Natasha getting pissed off enough to do something about it and getting pissed off enough to shut everyone else out. One wrong misstep and the conversation was over. “I just want to dance. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“So all we need to do is figure out how you can do that and live above the poverty line, so you can flaunt it in your dad’s face and tell him to go eat a bag of dicks. Can we work on that today?” Pepper asked.

Natasha was quiet for a moment. Steve wasn’t sure which way Pepper had fallen. Finally, she picked up her fork and speared a piece of egg. “I can’t believe you actually just said that. You’ve been around Tony too much.”

“I picked that one up from Bucky, actually,” Pepper said, smiling. The tension at the table broke; everyone visibly relaxed.

Pepper worked with Natasha for the next week to figure out what she was going to do with, conceivably, the rest of her life. Steve went home to spend an early birthday with his mom, and Sam’s family, so he missed the finer details, up to and including the phone call that apparently took three hours and made the Geneva Accords look like a disagreement about what flavor of ice cream to buy. Pepper even asked if she was sure she didn’t want to switch to political science when Natasha hung up, but apparently being a politician’s daughter came with both an innate ability to negotiate and a mean right hook—to the shoulder, Steve, and yes, she was fine.

“So… verdict?” He asked as they settled in for movie night with popcorn. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her personally since he’d gotten back.

“I’m sticking with dance as my major, but a business minor,” she made a face. “And he wants me to go to grad school for an MBA… There’s not a clock on that, though, so like… I’ll work with that.”

“Cool. So… business for why?”

“So I can open up a studio someday, and not run it into the ground.”

“I’d think you’d just hire Pepper for that side of it.”

Natasha smirked. “I said that, but she said that by the time I was going to open said studio, she’d be the CEO of a Fortune 100 company and thus too busy to deal with my abysmal money problems.”

“Always nice to have friends.”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “As long as I can count on you to design my promotional material…”

Steve exaggerated an alarmed face. “Oooh, about that…”

“You’re a jerk,” she laughed, nudging him again.

“Freeloader,” he fired back, nudging her back.

Their eyes met. His breath hitched and he resisted the urge to glance at her lips; he’d kept his dumb crush on her silent and low for years now. Sure, he’d gone on a few dates, but no one had really clicked with him. At this point, even Pepper had stopped asking if he was ever going to make a move on her. He valued their friendship too much to ever ruin it—though every time he saw how easy she and Clint were with each other, he did reconsider.

Natasha looked away, the moment over. “Let’s get this thing going already. I can’t believe you’ve never seen _Blazing Saddles_. It’s a cinematic masterpiece.”

* * *

Finally, it was Steve’s birthday. The morning of July 4 th, Tony barged into his room, shouting “IT’S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME AMERICA’S GOLDEN BOY CAN GET DRUNK AND NOT HAVE A GUILT TRIP.”

Steve shot him with a Nerf gun. Of course the only day Tony would be up before ten a.m. would be to celebrate something so ridiculous.

He was promptly kicked out of the house and told not to come back until after noon. Bucky offered to lend him the truck, but Steve declined. He actually rather liked the idea of spending part of his birthday in quiet solitude, wandering around town aimlessly. It would help him prepare for whatever insanity was being planned for later.

He called his mom, and then Sam and Mac, and finally found himself at the park. He sat on the swings, mindful of the groups of young children running around him. He kicked off a little, and stared up at the sky. He was probably supposed to be very thoughtful and thinking a lot about this new stage of life and what he expected from it. Really, though, he was mostly thinking how nice of a day it was, and how it wasn’t too hot or humid, but the temperature probably wasn’t going to drop tonight either. And he was thinking about fireworks, and wondering if Natasha had bought those really cool rainbow sparklers. Most of all, he was hoping Bucky would be grilling, because no one grilled a burger like Bucky.

Really, that was all it took to give him a good birthday.

When he got home, he was surprised not at the festooned backyard (he’d expected that), but at how few people there were. From the way Tony had been hinting all month, Steve expected at least a hundred people. And it was relatively early in the day, so perhaps people would show up for the campfire and fireworks later; but outside of their regular group there were only a handful of others, friends of friends, or people he knew from the art program or from intermurals he’d done over the years.

Bucky was grilling, wearing the “Fuck the Cook” apron Tony had bought as a gag gift last Christmas (which Bucky had been one-hundred-percent-unironically-smitten with). Natasha had sparklers of all kinds, from tiny white ones to the huge rainbow ones you had to stick in the ground and then light. Tony had a vodka-spiked watermelon. Clint had his appetite, and spent most of the time hovering around Bucky. Pepper handed Steve his first legal Jell-o shot, and no one was happier than Tony when Steve downed it easily.

It was a good birthday.

Other people trickled in as the sun went down; Tony cranked up the music. Clint got the campfire going and produced enough marshmallows to feed an army. Natasha revealed her secret stash of semi-illegal fireworks to set off.

Around ten, Steve was leaning against the fence with a beer, watching and waiting to see who would blow their fingers off first: Clint or Bucky. Natasha joined him. “You sure you can leave them unsupervised like this?” He asked, nodding to the fireworks.

She shrugged. “They’re grown men. And I have 911 on speed dial.”

“Comforting.”

“Well, when else would I be able to give you your birthday present?” She asked.

Steve looked down at her. “You bought a small fortune in explosives, you didn’t need to get me anything.”

She grinned. “Dummy, those are for the holiday. This is for your birthday. There’s a difference.”

“Alright, what—”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. He froze for a moment, then slowly bent down, his arm going around her waist to hold her in place or keep himself grounded and not run away—he wasn’t sure. There were shouts from the other side of the yard, and a firework went whistling off into the sky. She pulled her head back and looked up at him. “Happy birthday, Steve,” she said softly.

“I should have done that ages ago,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, but stopped him when he opened his mouth. “No, I know. Pepper told me, you didn’t want to mess anything up.”

“ _Pepper_ told you?” He asked, looking around to where their friend had vanished to.

“Don’t get mad at her. I think she got sick of us dancing around the subject, and she knew she could needle you for weeks and nothing would come of it.”

“Still, she… wait, both of us dancing around a subject?” Steve asked.

Natasha punched him gently in the arm. “Dummy. I’ve had a massive thing for you for years. Practically since we met on that tour.”

“Seriously?”

“Well… yeah.”

“So why didn’t _you_ do something about it?”

She shrugged. “You were good at acting like you weren’t interested.” She leaned her head against his chest. He held her tightly. “We’re both kind of dumb, huh?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but we can do that together now.”

“We kind of already were.”

“Well, now there’s kissing involved. I like that part.”

 “Me too,” she said, and proved it.


	10. Steve draws Natasha, Titanic-style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was requested anonymously, that Steve draw Natasha in a similar vein to the infamous scene in Titanic.
> 
> **This chapter contains EXPLICIT CONTENT. Like, there is so much sex and a lot of the explicit words that go with it.**

Natasha pointed at him with her drink. “So you’re telling me you’ve never gotten a stiffy over a nude model.”

Steve shook his head, taking a sip of his gin and tonic. “You compartmentalize. You’re not appreciating them for what they are, you’re breaking them down.”

“Like taking apart a gun to clean it, and putting it back together.”

“Right. Piece by piece, until you have the whole shape.”

“And you’ve never gotten turned on at that point?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“You’re a damn liar,” Natasha smirked. She threw the rest of her drink back and slid the glass down towards the bartender for another in one swift movement.

“Hand on a Bible, I’m not,” Steve retorted.

“Prove it.”

“How?”

Natasha shrugged, taking her refreshed drink from the bartender with a smile. “Draw me.”

Steve resisted the urge to blink in shock; she’d think it was a tell. He took another sip, this one a little bigger for luck, and said, “Fine. Tomorrow night.”

The smile she gave him promised nothing good. Steve mentally prepared himself for battle.

* * *

 

She came over to his studio around seven. He yelled to let her know to come in—he was in the middle of resetting the lighting for the fourth time, though he’d probably move it again once she was there. He adjusted the mirror to throw the light differently; her reflection stood behind him, an amused expression on her face. “Where do you want me?” She asked.

“Changing room’s behind the curtain, come out when you’re ready and we’ll get you into position,” he said, pulling on his lower lip, mulling over the draping on the couch. The reflection made it look wrong.

She went. He stalked around the couch. He pulled a fold here and tugged and tucked it there. It would also have to be retouched when Natasha entered the picture, but it would have to do for now. He sat down at his easel and went over his pencils carefully. Each were sharpened or stubbed to how he liked them for their purpose. A feminine cough drew his attention to the curtain.

Natasha was draped against the doorframe, bare as the day she was born except for the arrow necklace she always wore—“Keeps me flying straight,” she would say, referring to what her sponsor, Clint, always said when she felt like she was faltering during recovery. Her hair wasn’t as pin-straight as it normally was, the fading perm mussing it slightly. She wasn’t even wearing any makeup.

He could feel the heat rising on his cheeks as his stomach dropped out. Not thirty seconds and she was already proving him wrong. There wasn’t a smirk on her face, but the sway of her hips and the smooth flow of her arms spoke volumes for what her mouth didn’t. She sat on the couch and looked at him expectantly. Steve swallowed hard, took a breath, and his mind sank into the artist’s studio. Natasha transformed in his mind’s eye from his beautiful friend to a series of shapes and curves and lines that told more stories than the body they inhabited liked to share: the scars from the war across her shoulders and torso, the delicate nose that remained unbroken after years of combat training, the guarded eyes, eyes the color of sea foam. Laid bare, Natasha was an open book, and Steve wanted to tell her story in a thousand pencil strokes.

He told her to lay across the couch in a position that felt comfortable; she lay on her side, one arm tucked under a purple pillow she’d snatched off the floor, the other resting so her hand draped towards her stomach. “Ready?” He asked, picking up a pencil.

“Draw me like one of your French girls,” she teased.

Steve made a face. “Okay, now just… try not to move. You can talk, just… don’t fidget or anything.”

For a time, the only sound that filled the studio was the pencils scratching against the paper and their breathing; Natasha would breathe harder from her nose when she was amused, and Steve had a habit of puffing out short bursts of air when his lines went wrong. He was acutely aware of her eyes following his movements as the pencil flew across the page.

“Okay, you can relax a bit. I have the basic frame drawn out,” he said, picking up a new pencil for shading.

“I think you have the lights positioned so I can’t tell what you’re feeling,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t make out if you’re blushing or whatever. The light’s throwing you in the dark.”

“Not on purpose, I promise.”

“Uh-huh.”

He chuckled. “I’m smirking right now.”

“I got that one, jackass. Fine details escape me.”

“I take great pride in pulling one past you, honestly. I know about the IED scars, but where’d the one on your hip come from?”

It was interesting how even in all of the light her eyes managed to go dark at the question. “Sniper in Zabul. I was lucky he was that bad of a shot.”

Her tone left no room for further questions in that line, so Steve let the unquiet silence fill the room again. He was doing primary shading right now, and would move into darker lines next, working out the shadows playing under her fingers, the angle of dark from her upper leg across the lower, leading to the fire of hair at the apex. “Steven Grant Rogers, are you commenting on my pubic hair?” Natasha asked, amusement laced through the stern tone.

“What?”

“You clearly just said ‘never seen any that color before’.”

“I did?”

He’d thought it, for sure, but was he really talking out loud? “Have I been doing that a lot?” He asked, pausing his drawing for a moment.

“You mutter to yourself a lot. Sometimes I can’t tell what you’re saying, but a few comments have slipped through.”

“Oh, God…” How long had that been an unknown habit? Visions of odd or suggestive looks from his past models swam to the forefront of his brain, remarks from peers that had seemed strange floated through his inner ears. Had no one thought to tell him about this? Had they all just thought he had no filter—apparently, he didn’t have one.

Natasha smiled. “It’s kind of cute, honestly. It’s the most honest I’ve ever seen you, and that’s saying something.”

He made a high-pitched noise, and then cleared his throat. “Okay, I’m going to do your face now, so just… try not to move much.”

“Oh, I move plenty when someone’s doing my face, but just for you…” she teased.

This noise was purely involuntary, signaling every dog in the tri-state area, and she flashed her teeth in victory. His focus splintered with every pencil stroke. Her eyes caught his every glance, the upturn of her mouth caught on the page involuntarily. The sweetness in the curve of her face hid the panther that lay below the surface; for the first time in their years of friendship, Steve truly felt her predatory gaze as he captured the fiery ocean of her hair on the page.

He’d walked right into this game of cat and mouse, and there were no holes to hide in today.

Another hour passed, and then Steve finally set his pencil down. “Alright. It’s just a sketch, so we’re done.”

Natasha sat up and stretched. Steve’s taped-together focus faltered as he watched her body shift. He distracted himself by rolling his head on his neck a few times to loosen up his muscles, and stretched his arms. She padded over. “Can I see?”

“Yeah, I made you fairly hideous,” he joked, wriggling some life back into his fingers.

She was quiet as she picked up the pad. He watched her eyes dart around the paper; he couldn’t gauge if her reaction. “Is this really how you see me?”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said honestly.

She set the pad down. There was a ghost of a smile. “You got my hips all wrong.”

“Blame the lighting.”

“And what’s with that look on my face, I’m like… seducing you into my secret comedy lair or whatever.”

The tension in his shoulders he hadn’t known was there eased. “You always look like that. Like you’re going to fuck someone and laugh while doing it.”

“I do?” She seemed surprised.

“Yeah. I mean… I guess that’s not what happens, but I wouldn’t know,” he chuckled.

Their eyes met. “We could find out,” Natasha said.

He blinked. “Sorry?”

She swung one leg over both of his and straddled his lap, the panther glint back in her eye. Steve’s pulse almost jumped out of his throat. “Besides, I want to find out if I won,” she purred in his ear.

Her nails scratched down his shirt. “You’re cheating…” he breathed.

“Say the word and we’ll both walk away without another word.”

Their eyes met. He hesitated a fraction of a second too long; she started to rise. His hands went to her hips, pulling her back to him. Their lips met; her hands went to his head, cradling his face, then pulling at his hair. He groaned into her, squeezing her hips and grinding her into him. “That hurts with pants, you know,” she murmured against his lips.

“Guess we should take care of that,” he said.

He stood up, she faltered slightly as she regained her balance. Their hands met at his belt, fumbling over each other to get the leather through the buckle, then the buttons and zipper; free of restraint, his jeans slid to the floor with a thud. “Jesus, Rogers, you can leave your wallet out at home,” Natasha said.

“Habits,” he replied, stripping his shirt off. She did the honor of removing his boxers.

They stared at each other for a moment, the reality of the situation falling over them. Even Natasha seemed unsure. “You still in?” He asked.

“Yeah, I…” Her hand went to the scar across his chest. “Guess both of our bodies have stories to tell, huh?” She asked.

“I thought I told you, I had surgery while you were in Afghanistan,” he said. He tucked some of her hair behind her ear.

“You must have… IED gave me a concussion, it must be one of the things that didn’t stick…”

“They fixed a valve. No big deal.”

She took his hand and led him to the couch. “Some people like to fuck with the lights off. I prefer to be on the surface of the sun.”

“Har har.”

She rose up to kiss him, but he stopped her for a moment. “Be right back.”

He left, went to his medicine cabinet, and returned a minute later with condoms and lube. “Condoms? Plural?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You never know,” he said, and stopped all further questions by leaning over her and kissing her.

Natasha pulled him on top of her. He kissed and nipped his way down her neck, enjoying the gasps and sighs they brought from her. Steve kissed each of her scars as he went. “That might take a while,” she breathed.

“I’m counting on it,” he replied. “You have constellations on your skin.”

She went still, and Steve sat up, suddenly realizing what he’d said. “I’m sorry, I…”

Her gaze made him feel like a puzzle that was being solved. “You’re really something, Steve,” she told him.

He sat back on his heels, hopeless and speechless. “Sorry…”

“No, not like… You took me and laid me bare on that paper. Not in a naked way, in a… in a vulnerable way. In a way that I don’t know if it’s just you who can see everything I keep from everyone else or… And then you say that, and… You really do _see_ me. It’s very… unsettling,” she finished.

Steve let out a breath of laughter. “Sorry I just… I didn’t ever think _you_ would be the one saying _I_ was unsettling. You’ve been watching me like a cat all night.”

She reached for him. They came together, a mash of limbs and tongues and hair and muffled laughter. He mapped her constellations with his tongue, and lavished attention on her breasts while bringing her to the brink with his fingers. She looked about ready to punch him when he took his hands away, but he only grinned before moving down her body and devouring her. She arched when she came, a breathy whine escaping her as her hands fisted in his hair, her juices coating his tongue.

Steve took the time to grab one of the condoms and lube while she recovered. He grinned at the slightly dazed look on her face. She kicked his foot. “Shut up,” she said.

“I’m good, just saying,” he told her.

“It was okay.”

“See, that’s the kind of comment that would cut to us, four hours later, you begging me for more even after I’ve gotten you to come six times with my tongue alone.”

Natasha’s eyebrow went up again as she sat up. She took over the lubing process from him, squeezing a little harder than the process called for; she smirked as his eyes crossed a bit. “Six times in four hours? Seems a little… low,” she said, and bit his earlobe.

“And now it’s a challenge,” he drew the last syllable out with a hiss as she ran her tongue down his jugular, biting where his neck and shoulder met.

“Name the time and place.”

His voice caught in his throat as she grasped him in both hands, slowly squeezing and stroking with ease. “Ready?” She whispered.

He nodded. She turned around. “You put the mirror there on purpose,” she told him. “So we’re going to make full use of it. Put on a private show.”

Steve’s hands went to her hips. She sank onto him slowly. He watched her face in the mirror; a few uncomfortable twinges marred the contentment as she adjusted to this new addition to her body. Fully inside of her, she ground her ass against him to be sure, but he caught the wicked look of glee cross her face as he thrust against her involuntarily. “Not so fast, enjoy the ride,” she cautioned.

“Keep doing that and I don’t know how long that’ll last.”

She sat back, almost fully upright against him. He was still on his knees; she straddled him backwards, their joined bodies on full display in the mirror. “Ready?” She asked.

He nodded, and rocked against her. The rhythm was awkward, trying to match each other, trying to find the right wavelength. Natasha would tell him to watch their reflection, not her. Their pace picked up after a while. Her breasts bounced against her chest with their thrusts; they were mesmerizing to watch, until he noticed her face was contorted more in pain than pleasure. His hands went to grasp them, his thumbs circling her nipples, making her whine. One of her hands reached back, wrapping around his neck; he buried his face in her shoulder, watching as her other hand snaked down her body and began rubbing her clit. He picked up the pace again, murmuring anything that came to mind into her skin. He told her she was beautiful, he told her how tight she was, how good her breasts felt, how hot her cunt was around his cock.

She whined again, choking back a scream. He squeezed her breasts, telling her to let it out, scream as loud as she wanted. She did, and he almost chuckled, breathless as he thrust into her cunt, her own orgasm hastening his own. His came with a guttural, “Natasha” and her fingers entwining with his hair again.

His thighs burned, but he didn’t want to move. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry either. Steve lifted his head slightly, looking at their sweaty reflections in the mirror. “Look,” he murmured.

Natasha lifted her own head a bit, and let out a breathy laugh. “Coupla idiots, I’d say…”

“You’re beautiful.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, Steve.”

He laughed, and kissed her shoulder. He pulled out of her with a whine, and got up with a wince to go clean up and toss the condom. She followed him to the bathroom. “So… about that challenge…” Natasha started.

Steve laughed. “How about tomorrow, around seven?”

She raised her eyebrow at him again. He raised one of his in response.


	11. Victorian AU

Miss Natasha Romanov inwardly cursed her elegant skirts as she walked backwards, away from the Queen. As soon as it was proper, she turned and fled to a less-occupied hall of the palace, her legs weak from the intimidating acknowledgement of Her Majesty. Her father, Captain Michael Romanov of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, found her fanning herself and patting away unladylike strains of sweat with a cream embroidered handkerchief. “Father,” Natasha curtsied.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead fondly. “My darling, you are a credit to us.”

“I am glad, for that was the most terrifying sight anyone should ever behold. Why, I feared I would tumble over my train and have to flee to the country for the rest of the season in shame,” Natasha told him, taking his offered arm.

They strolled through the halls, Natasha’s pulse returning to normal as she nodded in acknowledgement to the bows, friendly smiles, and curious glances of her fellow debutantes and the courtesans. Natasha was a late-bloomer, being outed at twenty when so many of her schoolgirl associates had come out in the last few seasons, but her teachers blamed her rough, Northern upbringing, with whispers of her Russian blood also taking the blame. Natasha was proud to be of the North, though, and her Slavic bloodlines ran far bluer than most of her teachers would ever care to guess, and took no notice of them. Debuting at seventeen or eighteen had seemed so… dull. So rushed. Why should she claim a husband when she had barely claimed her own mind? Her own mind which she knew well by now, and her teachers also had pitied any husband the imperious young woman might trick into wedding her.

Her father was of mixed emotions about his daughter’s debut into society. He was, of course, pleased that she might marry well and be cared for all her days; even a decorated officer such as himself still faced the potential to go to war and leave his only child orphaned and struggling in the world. Yet she was the only link he had to his wife, who had died in childbirth with their stillborn son. Captain Romanov was loathe to give up his cherished daughter to another man.

Father and daughter spent the rest of the afternoon leisurely strolling through the palace grounds, discussing a book Natasha had been forced to cast off as the social season began. They were stopped at several turns to accept invitations to dinner parties, afternoon teas, and promised dances at Almack’s the following Wednesday. Natasha wished passionately that she had some sort of social schedule to attend to, for she was certain she would forget everything before the afternoon was done. “Honestly, Father, the entire affair is so… preposterous. How am I to know if any of the persons at these events I would find to my liking?” She asked him as they turned back towards the palace.

“Well, my dear, you were the one who wanted to delay your presentation to society the most. You could have come out two seasons ago with the other girls at school, and known all attendants at such parties,” Captain Romanov reminded her.

“Yes, and then I would have had to listen to Lydia and Sophia’s dull stories again and again until the Lord took me as His own in His Mercy,” Natasha said dryly.

Her father threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, my dearest one, I shall miss your pert tongue. You have no patience for fools, and life is full of too many of them. I often thank God Himself for blessing me with such a child to remind me.”

“Father, don’t speak of my marrying yet. The season has only begun; I couldn’t bear it to be all we spoke of.”

* * *

 

Natasha woke early the next morning, as she always did, in their modest Town house. With no living mother, she was hardly expected to have arranged any parties during the season. She had an Aunt Sampson in Belgravia who would undoubtedly be holding a party for her in the coming weeks, with more garden parties to follow where she would be expected to be on her best behavior. For the moment, she had a quiet morning to herself.

She dressed simply for the morning, putting her own hair up; she was unaccustomed to a servant helping her prepare for the day, though there were two girls in the house who had the skills required of a lady’s maid. Natasha would need their assistance to prepare her suitably for the tea she would be attending at Mrs. Wickham’s that afternoon, but it would be hours yet. She took breakfast alone--her father attending to some business or other according to Cook--and retreated into her father’s study to take up her book again. Her father’s ideas were spinning in her head from the day before, and she wanted to see how her own mixed with them.

She was not roused until one of the servants came to remind her of her engagement; startled, Natasha whirled to look at the handsome grandfather clock, which read half past noon. The young debutante cried out, and hurried away upstairs, calling her thanks. The serving girl chuckled; it was nice to know that the young Miss wasn’t changing her ways with her new status as a member of society.

A carriage came for her at two, and along with it came her father. “You look lovely, my dear,” he told her, for she did, in a suitable gown of blue trimmed in silver, her fiery hair twined elegantly around her head.

“And you, Father,” she told him, for he did indeed look smart in his jacket and cravat. “Let us commence the parade of fools.”

Natasha behaved herself at Mrs. Wickham’s tea. She had learned early that not all of her commentary on social or political events was agreeable with those of her class. With her father occupied with the menfolk—oh, to be free of these silly social customs and join him! Perhaps she might have a decent conversation for once in her short life—Natasha found her attention wandering away from the conversation of last season’s social highlights. While she was not the youngest debutante at the party, she was one of the few who were in their first season. Detailed accounts of parties she had not attended seemed to be more odious than being in attendance.

A servant came in as Natasha was counting the rosebuds at the window, startling her with the announcement of a late-coming guest. Mrs. Wickham stood, and welcomed the young man. “My dear! I had feared you would be called away by some pressing matter.”

“You have my sincerest apologies on my lateness, Mrs. Wickham, business did have me away for longer than I anticipated. But I am here now, and have been starving myself in anticipation of some of your cook’s tarts,” the man, tall and fair, said with a flourishing bow and a kiss on the older woman’s hand.

Natasha watched him with no small amount of curiosity. He was several years older than she, with a military precision to his steps, dress, and appearance. Mrs. Wickham introduced him to the young ladies in turn, and Natasha accepted the hand of Captain Stephen Rogers when her turn came. “Captain, this young lady is Miss Natasha Romanov, of York. Her father is Captain Michael Romanov, of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.”

“York? My good lady, you’re a long way from home,” the captain remarked.

“It is quite a ways, yes, but we Northerners enjoy defrosting in the South on occasion,” Natasha replied. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain. How do you find the army?”

The captain smiled. “You have a good eye.”

“I have a father who has instructed his daughter in the differences of soldiers and sailors,” she replied with a smile of her own.

“Of which there are many. For now, I find the army suitable, though with word of trouble in Crimea has many of us concerned. England might well keep her business out of it, but the Eastern Question remains troubling.”

Natasha kept herself composed at the mention of her distant cousin. “Surely the sultan can keep the tsar’s armies out of it while he settles his people. I know there has been much unrest in the Empire as of late, but unrest surely has yet to reach the military as well.”

“The sultan is weak, and the tsar is taking advantage. It’s clear which leader paid attention in his military lessons,” the captain said. “The tsar has too much power as it is, which is what should concern Her Majesty.”

“Her Majesty must be more concerned with the current state of affairs in Africa and the Far East than involving herself further with the Russians,” she replied dubiously.

“Keeping the Mediterranean open for trade would be Her Majesty’s largest concern,” the captain said, and began to continue when Mrs. Wickham coughed delicately. “My dear, there are still a few introductions to make, and the conversation is most inappropriate for Miss Romanov.”

Captain Rogers inclined his head to her. “As my lady wishes. Miss Romanov, perhaps we shall be seeing more of each other over the season.”

Natasha nodded gracefully and he moved along to the next introduction, before joining the other men in the study. Lady Troughton leaned forward slightly. “It’s astounding that Captain Rogers is yet unmarried at twenty-five. He’s handsome and well-off, for a military officer.”

“Men are less likely to have a clock on them, Lady Troughton,” Natasha remarked. “Whereas we ladies are like eggs or milk, and can’t be let to sit in the sun for too long or else we shrivel up.”

There were several indignant gasps from the ladies present, but some of the younger girls tittered in amusement. Natasha inclined her head. “My apologies for my brashness, Lady Troughton.”

The older woman sniffed. “It’s clear why your social debut has come so late, Miss Romanov.”

“Ladies, please,” Mrs. Wickham interrupted. “This is a distasteful topic for such a fine afternoon. Miss Romanov has her reasons for doing things her way, as you do yours, Lady Troughton.”

The conversation shifted back to more pleasant topics, and Natasha found her attention wandering again. How nice it had been to have a morsel of an intelligent conversation, if only for a moment!

* * *

 

Wednesday called her to Almack’s for the debutante’s ball. The famed society hall left her little impressed with its splendor and more impressed with how men and women seemed to mingle freely here. Her Aunt was acting as chaperone this evening, with her father claiming to have had enough of the smell of the hall to last him a lifetime. Natasha wrinkled her nose as they moved through the ballroom, admitting that perhaps her father was correct.

Natasha’s dances were claimed, and she silently blessed her tutors for the hours of work they had put in on her ungainly feet to make her a passable dancer. Her dress, scarlet and gold tonight, whirled about her as she performed the steps she could complete in her sleep, leaving her mind free for discussion of lighthearted topics with her partners. Most of them seemed silly and shallow, though a few of the older gentlemen seemed to recognize her eagerness for conversation of more gain than the weather or fashion. She took two dances with a gentleman who allowed her to speculate on the recent years’ drought on the Northern cotton manufacturers, with his own commentary adding to her knowledge. “My, my, one might think you’d grown up among the workers and the mills with all of this talk, Miss Romanov!” He said as she curtsied in thanks for the dance.

She chose not to scandalize him with tales of her childhood flitting in and out with the workers’ children, leaving him instead with the impression that all Yorkshire girls were keepers of vast knowledge of the North. She joined her aunt at rest, enjoying her lemonade and the chance to catch her breath. “You’re becoming quite popular, darling,” Aunt Sampson said. “I don’t know where we’ll put everyone when your party comes, but we’ll have a plan soon enough.”

Natasha brought out her fan, cooling herself. “Aunt, please, one party at a time. I can barely keep this one straight, who I’ve danced with and who I shan’t accept another from…”

“You keep avoiding the topic, dear, when else am I supposed to discuss it?” Aunt Sampson asked, a touch of exasperation in her voice.

Natasha kept in a sigh. “Tomorrow, Aunt, I promise. We’ll plan the most spectacular coming out party this season.”

Her aunt beamed. “That’s the spirit, dear.”

Sometime later, Natasha excused herself to walk. She said hello to acquaintances and a few old school friends who were in attendance with their fiancés. She was catching up with Miss Jane Foster when she heard a voice call her name. Natasha looked around and saw Captain Rogers striding towards them. She greeted him and made introductions. “We only met the other day at Mrs. Wickham’s,” Natasha explained to Jane.

“I must say I am surprised to see you here, Miss Romanov. If I may, you didn’t seem enthralled with the company at Mrs. Wickham’s,” Captain Rogers offered.

“I find the company here to be more agreeable. A wider selection of people leads to more open minds than one might find at afternoon tea,” she said.

“Natasha can be quite brash at times, Captain, I hope she doesn’t offend,” Jane said.

Natasha fought the urge to kick her friend. Captain Rogers chuckled. “It’s refreshing, I admit, to find someone who readily speaks her mind. Society can be rather abrasive in its constraints, Miss Romanov, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Readily, and often the first to say so,” Natasha replied.

Jane gave her an amused look. Natasha knew the look well; it often came after she opened her mouth and said anything. Captain Rogers offered his hand with a bow. “I was hoping to claim a dance from Miss Romanov, if you can bear to be parted from your friends.”

Jane waved her on. “Oh, go on then. We’ll have you for tea this week, I’ll send an invitation and we can catch up then.”

The captain whirled her onto the dance floor. She was charmed to find that he picked up their conversation on the Eastern Question almost where they left off. The question of a second dance was hardly needed as conversation turned to a book they both had read. Natasha was truly sorry that polite society demanded she was ineligible for another dance with a man who was not her husband. She would have happily danced all night with the captain, who left her with a bow and a promise to call on her next week.

She hadn’t thought she could wish for time to pass any quicker.

* * *

 

Thursday passed in a blur of plans for her coming out party, which would be held in two weeks. Natasha accepted tea at Jane’s on Saturday, and patiently listened to wedding plans—Jane had been the kindest of her schoolmates, and Natasha felt it only proper to return the kindness, even over a topic she held little interest in. The captain’s face would occasionally pop into her imagination as Jane described her wedding setting, and Natasha had to shake it off. They had spoken and danced only twice. It was hardly proper.

However, when his card came on Tuesday with an invitation for a walk in Hyde Park the next afternoon, she couldn’t help but let the excitement course through her veins. She could hardly sleep in anticipation, and woke late in the morning for perhaps the first time in her life. She was hardly herself all morning. The serving girl even commented on it as she helped arrange Natasha’s hair under a hat suitable for a walk on this day, with its weak sunlight filtering through the clouds. “I don’t understand it myself, Maggie,” Natasha said, tilting her head this way and that in the mirror to see the effect. “It’s unusual.”

“Perhaps its love, miss,” Maggie, who was only two years younger than Natasha, said.

“Love? That’s preposterous. I hardly know him. How can I love someone I’ve only just met?”

Maggie tucked an errant curl under a pin. “I don’t understand it meself, miss, but them books ye learned me always talk of lovers and such like this.”

Natasha turned, eyeing the younger girl with amusement. “I hardly think I taught you your letters so you might be reading such inappropriate material.”

Maggie smiled impishly. “That’s the better part of comin’ from blood less grand than yer own, miss. We aren’t having the same rules as ye.”

Natasha waved her off and put on her jewelry. Captain Rogers arrived precisely at two-thirty and, with Maggie trailing behind as chaperone (her aunt was entertaining and her father had business), they set off round the park. Their conversation remained mild, until Natasha inquired about his childhood. Captain Rogers looked amused. “A very personal topic, Miss Romanov.”

“My apologies, Captain, I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that it’s very boring to talk about the flowers and the weather, and I feel I hardly know you, aside from your military and academic knowledge,” Natasha said, spinning her parasol as they walked.

“I am inclined to agree, though proper protocol would not.”

“Oh, blast proper protocol, it’s stifling!” Natasha cried. Maggie’s giggle could be heard behind them. “For once, I should enjoy a proper conversation with someone, without dancing about a subject and praying I should not offend another party! How is it, I wonder, that anyone truly gets to know another person whilst chafing under the harness of society? We put our blinders on like a carriage horse and go where dictated by the reins, its maddening!”

“You feel quite strongly about this,” the captain said.

“Is it any wonder I delayed my society debut two years for this?” She asked, agitated.

Captain Rogers cleared his throat. “Hardly, though I for one am grateful, as two years ago I was stationed in Uruguay and thought I might never return home.”

Natasha looked down. The captain offered his arm as they came across a puddle. “Now, let me think… Have you ever heard of a great beast known as a woozleox?”

The young lady looked up at him, an eyebrow raised. Maggie was giggling again. “I can hardly say I have.”

The captain smiled, and looked behind them. “And you, Miss Maggie, have you heard of them?”

Maggie shook her head. “Nay, sir, though bein’ from the North an’ all we might be havin’ different creatures than ye.”

Captain Rogers tutted. “Perhaps, but you may not have heard of them because I, being the grand and terrible expedition hunter that I am, vanquished all known woozleoxes in the land, when I was only seven years old.”

Natasha began to laugh. Captain Rogers’ smile turned into a grin. “Now, it was well known that the woozleox particularly enjoyed living in dens below the berry shrubs in the garden of my parents’ country home in Sussex. A grand and terrible beast it was, with the ears of a fox, the teeth and manners of a badger, the speed of a rabbit, and the spines of a hedgehog.”

“My, and how large was this grand and terrible woozleox?” Natasha asked, unable to keep the humor from her voice.

“Why, it was at least seven feet tall,” Captain Rogers boasted.

“It were never that big!” Maggie gasped, taken with the captain as much as her mistress.

“Of course, the size varied if it was an adult or a child, but the grand and terrible expedition hunter Stephen G.H. Rogers would never consent to killing a young animal, he did have standards.”

“Of course,” Natasha granted.

“It took the entire summer, but when the leaves began to turn, we all were able to rest safely for the winter, knowing that the woozleoxes were no longer a threat. The trick to hunting the woozleox is to lay a trap of berries, for it is their favorite food, and once they’re in the open make a great deal of noise and swing your weapon of choice about to shock them into submission.”

“How then, Captain, were you able to reconcile your ethical dilemma with hunting the young?” Natasha asked.

“Oh, easily enough. A woozleox offspring reaches maturity in a mere four weeks,” Captain Rogers explained.

“My, how convenient for you.”

“Convenient nothing, my lady, but a mere fact of life and nature.”

Natasha laughed again, and he with her. “All right, so now you have a story of my misspent youth in the country, may I inquire about yours?” He asked as they took another turn.

She thought for a moment about which story might scandalize him the least. She glanced behind her at Maggie, who gave a frank shrug of the shoulders. Natasha was inclined to agree. It might be best to give the whole of it at once. “I grew up in York, so hardly the country, though the family does have a country home that we used in the summer. I would play with the factory workers’ children, until they were old enough to enter the factories themselves. Though, many of them were in and out of the factories before that, delivering lunches or relieving siblings who were too tired or ill to continue. Occasionally I went with them. I’ve done my fair share of work with the looms and gathering the cotton fluff.”

She felt his intense gaze upon her and didn’t look up. “Quite shocking, I know, but by the time my friends were fully able to work, I was becoming a young lady myself and my father sent me down to London for my education. I lived with my Aunt Sampson when school was out of session.”

“Your father is in the Royal Navy, is he not?”

“Yes. When he was away for his duty, the housekeeper minded me, though being a Northerner herself she had different ideas of the classes mixing than a Southerner might,” she explained. “Then I had Aunt looking after me. We often butted heads over propriety, we still do. North and South, we’re quite stubborn in our ways.”

The captain cleared his throat. “Well… that’s certainly true.”

“Does my past scandalize you, Captain?” Natasha asked, finally looking up at him.

“It’s certainly different. You suffered no ill effects from it, I take it?”

“I had a cough for a while. Mrs. Hampton thought it might be fluff in my lungs, or that I’d have consumption from being around the working poor, but it went away after I came down to London.”

“Smoke, then?”

“No, for its worse here. We make cloth in York, and we can’t have fires anywhere near the factories. It would be a disaster for us all. Mrs. Hampton thinks the warm air here does wonders for my health.”

Captain Rogers chuckled. “Odd to think that one might call London warm.”

“I cordially invite you to spend the winter in York and see how you like London after,” Natasha told him, which made him laugh again.

They took one more turn around the park before he escorted her home. In the front hall, he bowed and kissed the back of her hand. “Miss Romanov, it has been my pleasure.”

“The pleasure was mine, Captain Rogers. Will you be at Almack’s tonight?”

“Perhaps. I have some business to attend to first, and if that fails to run over I may find myself fit enough to attend,” he said, and winked. “Though the promise of a dance may strengthen my will to conclude business faster.”

Natasha inclined her head gracefully. “In that case, Captain Rogers, a promise you shall have.”

“I look forward to it, Miss Romanov,” Captain Rogers nodded towards Maggie. “Miss Maggie, a pleasure as well. Ladies, I bid you a good afternoon.”

After he left, Maggie followed Natasha upstairs to change. “Beggin’ a thousand pardons, miss, but I like ‘im.”

Natasha turned to allow her to undo the back of her dress. “I rather think I do too, Maggie.”

* * *

 

The days passed in a blur of garden parties, concerts, and carriage rides through the parks—for Natasha gained several persistent suitors. Her aunt was both overjoyed at the popularity of her niece, and equally lamented the time lost to chaperoning when she could be preparing for her coming out party. Natasha found her mornings becoming busier with letter writing, declining and accepting invitations at turns, as well as keeping in touch with friends. She also kept a ledger of how often she declined invitations from her less desirable suitors, for one too many could be considered insulting. ‘ _Never mind that it’s insulting that they continue to pester me when I attempt to turn them down…_ ’ she thought darkly one morning, consulting her ledger and sighing at the revelation that she would have to accept a concert invitation after all.

At her coming out party, she hardly had time to savor the cooking with how often she was whisked into a waltz. She had to be very cautious as well with how often she spoke to each person in attendance, and her aunt had expressly forbidden her from giving more than one dance to anyone, lest she put anyone out. It was an entirely exhausting affair, and Natasha was glad to wave the last person out of the house well after midnight. She begged some scraps from the cook before giving in to her aunt’s maid and changing for bed.

When she returned to her own home, there were dozens and dozens of flower arrangements to be looked after and notes to be written in thanks. Her father grumbled about allergies, and Natasha had to agree; her nose itched from all the pollen and she feared she would be red-eyed and puffy for several days to come.

She saw Captain Rogers less frequently than her heart wanted, though each time she tried to make it plain that she would like to keep his company more frequently. It wasn’t until a grand picnic in Hyde Park in honor of Prince Leopold’s christening that they had another chance to talk for a lengthy period of time. He found her walking with a friend among the roses. “Captain Rogers, it’s been some time,” Natasha greeted him warmly. “Miss Elizabeth Ross, this is Captain Stephen Rogers.”

The captain bowed. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Ross. Miss Romanoff, a pleasure to see you as well. I must offer my sincerest apologies for straying from your side for so long.”

“I hope nothing is remiss, captain.”

“Nothing that should worry you much,” he said easily. “However, I must beg your particular friend’s pardon, as I hoped to escort you around the park.”

Natasha opened her fan fully, cooling herself with it in her right hand. Elizabeth stifled a sound that sounded like a giggle. “Well, let it never be said I dash the hopes of a soldier.”

The captain’s eyes lit with pleasure. Natasha hoped he understood her signals. “Elizabeth, I’ll send a note to have you for tea this week, shall I?”

“Of course, Natasha, I look forward to it.” From her tone, Natasha expected Elizabeth would want a full report of what happened next.

She and the captain took two turns around the park, admiring their fellow picnic-goers and chatting amicably about the goings on in their lives. As Natasha was about to suggest another go around, Captain Rogers turned to her abruptly. “Miss Romanoff, I have something I wish to speak to you about. I cannot bear to put it off any longer.”

She blinked, and composed herself. “Of course, captain.”

“I fear this may seem abrupt but… I feel we have a connection. We may not have seen much of each other, but… and forgive me for speaking so forwardly but I care for you, and I feel that you care for me as well. And I do apologize for keeping so little company with you these last few weeks, but Miss Romanov had I been the master of my own fate I would have wished to spend every moment of that time with you instead,” the captain’s face grew redder and redder as he spoke.

Natasha felt fairly flushed herself. ‘ _Gracious is he about to…?_ ’ Captain Rogers cleared his throat. “And so, while I am fully aware of the proper protocol I am throwing carelessly into the wind, I must ask this of you.” And here, the captain took one of her trembling hands in his, and knelt in the dirt before her. “Miss Romanov, I humbly ask for your hand in marriage. Will you marry me?”

Natasha’s free hand flew to her mouth. She was surprised to feel tears forming in her eyes; she hadn’t expected to be so emotional about something as silly as a proposal . She feared she would be unable to speak without crying, so she just started nodding her head vigorously; she felt her hat slip free of its pins, and fall to the earth as Captain Rogers stood and lifted her easily, twirling her in a circle. She laughed and sobbed all at once. “Yes, Captain Rogers, I will marry you,” she managed, and their lips met for the first time.

A feeling like an electric shock zipped through her body, all the way down to her toes. When they parted, she was grasping his lapels. “And as for breaking protocols, I wouldn’t have accepted a proposal that didn’t,” she teased, and he laughed. He took her hand again, and slipped his signet ring on her finger.

There was the matter of her father, and Captain Romanov was quite a force to be reckoned with when he discovered that his daughter had accepted a proposal without first having her fiancé consult her father. It took some time, but eventually he accepted it.

Captain Rogers spent quite a bit of his free time at the Romanovs’ Town house after Captain Romanov’s blessing. A week after the proposal, it was announced to the papers, and Natasha traded Captain Rogers’ signet ring for his mother’s refashioned engagement ring; it had been a bit large for her. The captain had also commissioned more stones added: already there were jade, sapphire, and ruby stones set in the gold band, but he had a moonstone, a polished piece of nephrite, and tanzanite added. “My parents’ initials are here, Joseph and Sarah Rogers, but now you and your parents are here as well: Michael, Tatiana, and Natasha,” he explained. She knew his parents had died in the cholera epidemic of ’32, and accepted his mother’s ring with great reverence.

Aunt Sampson was beside herself, barely recovered from planning Natasha’s coming out party and now there was a wedding to plan. Natasha, as she had with the party, barely gave any input and let her aunt do as she wished. If it were up to her, she would be entirely French about the ordeal and elope. Her happy daydreams were dashed, however, when she had appointment after appointment with the drapers to design her bridal gown. Her debutant dresses had been more than enough torment, but this was an entirely different torture, topped off with more lace and fine embroidery than anyone should ever have to endure.

Captain Rogers and Natasha Romanov were married on September 18, in the small church in the village the captain had grown up in and housed his parents’ graves. It was a cool day, and the rain that threatened to fall thankfully waited until they were safely housed in the inn for the night. The rain battering the windows was juxtaposed nicely against the crackling fire in the hearth, and proved a fitting backdrop for the consummation of their marriage.

In October, war broke out between the Ottomans and the Russians. Natasha saw both her husband and her father grow more concerned by this as the weeks went by. Around Christmas, they had another growth to distract them: Natasha was with child. On Christmas evening, after their return from services, Natasha was more than content to retire early with her husband, listening to him read aloud to her. “There will be three of us come next Christmas…” she murmured happily. Captain Rogers’ hand covered her stomach easily, and her hand laid over his.

However, in March, orders came. England was preparing for war with Russia, and all hands were needed. Captain Romanov left first, his ships going to the Black Sea. Natasha didn’t see her husband off, for she was practically under orders to return to her family’s home in York. Mrs. Hampton would look after her there. She put up a fight, but it did her no good when even the servants were against her staying in London. “We’re none of us any hand at babies, missus,” Maggie, who had come with Natasha to her husband’s modest home, argued with her privately one night. “Mrs. Hampton’s been raising babes for years, and it’ll do more good to have a friendly face about than all the fancy doctors in London.”

“The war will be over in six weeks, and you all will have to listen to me fuss at you about repacking the house and moving back to London, mark my words,” Natasha scowled.

But six weeks came and went, and the war marched on. Natasha wrote letters to her friends in London, and to her father and husband. The rest of the time she could be found storming around the manor, scowling and finding rooms to have redone and décor to be refinished, or doing the shopping for Mrs. Hampton. That only stopped in June, when a pain shot through her growing stomach and she thought she would give birth right there in the market; after that, the doctor recommended she stay home until the baby was born.

Being confined was infuriating; she knew her temper was only high because she had not had word from her husband or her father in several weeks and it worried her sick, but the staff was still cautious to give Mrs. Rogers a wide berth if she was about.

Then, near the end of July, Natasha woke one morning feeling like someone had laid a damp cloth over her entire body. She wondered if she was ill. She bathed, dressed, and took breakfast. When the footman came with the morning post, there was only one letter. The script on the envelope was formal, and something in her feared to open it. When she did, she let out a wail that brought Mrs. Hampton and half the kitchen staff to the dining room at a run.

Her father’s ship had been sunk off the coast of Sevastopol. While many of the crew had been rescued, Captain Romanov had gone down with the ship.

Natasha retreated to her rooms for the rest of the day, praying fervently that her husband write to her soon, that the next letter to show up on her doorstep would not bring her the news that she was an orphan and a widow.

Her grief was cut short, a few days later, when her child announced it was time to enter the world. She raved for hours, calling for her husband; the doctor worried that childbed fever would set in, or eclampsia. Mrs. Hampton fretted herself into tears at the thought of losing her young mistress so soon after the captain. She did what she could to soothe the young woman, gripping her hand during the labor pains and bathing the sweat away, but nothing stopped the cries for Captain Rogers.

It was after midnight when the baby came, finally. Natasha, exhausted, cradled the girl-child. “Sarah Michelle…” she said quietly, naming her for her late grandmother and grandfather.

* * *

 

Natasha looked up from her correspondence as Maggie came in with little Sarah, chubby at five months, smiling and babbling away at the maid. “Here now, little miss, yer all a-twitter at yer mam now, when ye was fussing yer head into a fever not three minutes gone,” the maid scolded.

“She must be hungry, it’s about that time,” Natasha said, looking over at the grandfather clock.

“She wants her mam’s attention is all, missus. The wet nurse saw to it she were fed an’ all before goin’ to market.”

Natasha cradled the infant to her chest, and capped her ink bottle. “I’ll finish that later then, if she wants playing with. Thank you, Maggie, I’ll take care of her from here.”

It was near Christmas, but the mood in the York house was somber. Sarah grabbed at the jet buttons on her mother’s mourning dress, babbling away. Sarah had her father’s blonde hair and her mother’s green eyes; Mrs. Hampton said she’d grow to be a beauty, just as her mother had. Natasha privately wished she wouldn’t, and maybe she would be spared the heartbreak of a husband missing in a war.

Captain Rogers hadn’t been heard from in months. None of her letters of inquiry had been answered. She didn’t know if he was injured or captured or dead. She didn’t even know if he knew about Sarah, that she was healthy, that Natasha had survived childbirth. For all she knew, her letters simply vanished into the ether as soon as they were sent; for she hoped against hope, and sent her letters anyway.

Snow was falling outside the window as Natasha played with her daughter. She tried to keep a happy, smiling face for the baby, but some days were harder than others. So distracted by their playtime was she that she didn’t hear the bell signaling a visitor at the door. And so Natasha was startled when a wide-eyed Maggie came rushing into the room, saying, “Missus, ye won’t believe it when I tell ye who were at the door—”, followed by heavy footsteps storming into the room; Natasha leapt to her feet, clutching her baby to her chest as if someone might steal her, and looked at her husband for the first time in nearly a year. “Stephen?” She whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

One arm was in a sling, but otherwise he was whole. They came together in a rush, careful of Sarah between them, Natasha trying not to cry and Captain Rogers not bothering. “I’ve missed you so…” he murmured into her hair.

“You never wrote…”

“It’s been a very difficult few months, love. There was a blockade that stopped supplies and post from coming through, and then I was injured… I received your letters in a bundle, it took some time to get through them all, and then when I read about your father, and then our daughter… For you to suffer so much, in so little time, love, I cannot begin to beg your forgiveness for being away.”

Natasha found she could say nothing, only lean against him and draw strength from him. “You haven’t been properly introduced,” she said after a while, and straightened. “Captain Stephen Rogers, this is your daughter, Sarah Michelle Rogers. Sarah, this is your father.”

Sarah scrunched up her face as she was passed to Captain Rogers for the first time. Natasha feared she was going to start crying, but then he was talking to her and Sarah calmed down immediately. There were more tears in her husband’s eyes, and it was all she could do to keep her own tears in. She leaned against him again. “She takes after you,” she said.

“No, she’ll be as pretty as her mother. No, not even that, she’ll be as intelligent as her mother. Our lovely, intelligent daughter. London society won’t know what to do with her.”

Natasha found she had nothing to say to that. Instead, she stretched herself up to kiss her husband. “I missed you.”

“And I you. I’m just glad I made it home in time,” he said.

She looked at him curiously. “In time?”

He smiled. “You did say there would be three of us for Christmas this year.”


	12. Realizing They Have Each Other's Names on Their Coke Bottles AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know, Coca-Cola is doing this stunt where they have "Share a Coke with..." and then a name on the label. It's a bit of a popular fic idea at the moment, and I wanted to do something short and silly after the last few very long chapters.

Steve combed through the bottles on the shelf. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered.

“Oh my God, just grab a freakin’ bottle so we can go,” Bucky grumbled. “The movie starts in twenty minutes and you know how long the light on Broad takes.”

“My name is STEVE. How boring and normal can you get with STEVE?” Steve exclaimed. “I can walk into any tourist trap in the nation, nay the WORLD, and find a shot glass or plastic keychain or a bicycle license plate with my name on it, but I can’t find my name on a Coke bottle at a Piggly Wiggly?”

“No one cares if you share a Coke with yourself or with…” Bucky picked up a bottle at random and read the label. “Natasha. There. Just take it. No one cares. It’s a promotional stunt.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Buck.”

“Look, white bread, how many Tamikas are there on your novelty keychains? Not a lot. Let Tamika and Cecil and Jay-Z have their turn to shine,” Bucky said, practically dragging Steve to the checkout.

“Jay-Z doesn’t need his name on a Coke bottle to shine, he’s luminous in his own right,” Steve retorted.

“Point still stands, Whitey McWhiterson.”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

“And yet there is not a single Bucky on any Coke bottles.”

“James,” Steve said.

“And only my grandmother calls me by my Christian name, thank you.”

Steve rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath, turning around in line as the short redhead in front of him placed her basket on the counter while the guy in front of her bagged his items. “YOU!” Steve exclaimed as she took out a Coke bottle clearly labeled “Share a Coke with Steve”. “YOU took the last Steve!”

The redhead looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “I just grabbed one off the shelf, dude.”

“Your name isn’t Steve, though!” He paused for a moment. “Isn’t it?”

Bucky was audibly sighing behind him, and the redhead looked ready to join him. “No, but it’s not a big deal. It’s a dumb promotional stunt.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Bucky said.

Steve felt betrayed on all sides. “Look, I’m aware this isn’t the best hill to die on, but I will defend this stupid hill until someone slays me. I will trade you for the Steve bottle, or so help me this guy will never hear the end of it,” he pointed behind him at Bucky.

The redhead raised both eyebrows. “Is it worth it?” She asked Bucky.

“If only to shut him up…”

She smirked. “I’m feeling generous today.”

“ _Thank you_. Here,” he offered his bottle out, and she made a noise of surprise. “What?”

She looked up at him. “You have my name.”

Bucky swore. Steve gaped. “You’re kidding me.”

The redhead reached into her back pocket and brought out a card holder, flipping it open to reveal her ID. “Natasha Romanoff.”

“Steve Rogers,” he said, a little breathless.

Bucky clapped them both on the shoulders, making sure to use his prosthetic arm on Steve because it tended to freak people out when they weren’t expecting it. “By the power vested in me by the state of North Carolina and promotional stunts by major corporations everywhere, it is decreed that you both must share your Cokes with one another. But _after_ the movie, because we already bought tickets and we’re going to be so late if you don’t move your asses.”

“And you’re holding up my line,” the cashier drawled, because it had been a few minutes.

“And we’re holding up this nice young man’s line.”

Natasha shrugged, giving the cashier her basket. “Fine by me.”

She took a scrap of paper out of her pocket and scribbled something on it. “Provided you aren’t a serial killer, call me when you want to share,” she said, her voice low as she gave it to Steve with a wink.

She paid and took her bags. “See you around, Steve Rogers.”

Steve raised his hand dazedly in farewell, handing his bottle over and two dollars. “Wait, that means I can’t bring this in to the theater!”

Bucky chuckled, slinging his good arm around Steve’s shoulders as they left. “See, fate’s a funny thing, pal. You try to cheat a movie theater out of charging you eight bucks for a pop, and you wind up with a date and still having to pay eight bucks for a pop.”


	13. Babysitting/Natasha picking on Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an anonymous request for babysitting, and then sakieleveningstar requested Little Natasha and Little Skinny Steve, with Natasha picking on him.

“You’ll be fine, sweetie.”

“But Mo-om…”

“Sasha, you behave for Steve, alright?”

“…fine…”

“We’ll be back in about an hour.”

The door closed, leaving Steve breathing more heavily than usual (even for him), side-eyeing the six-year old scowling next to him. This was the first time his mother had thought he could handle watching the neighbor’s daughter by himself—not as exciting as the first time he got to stay home by himself, but definitely more daunting. The eleven-year old’s immediate instinct was to take a hit off his inhaler to calm his nerves, but he picked up a vibe from the little girl that showing weakness would be used against him. Natasha scuffed the floor as she stalked into the living room. “Where are you going?” He asked.

“Nowhere.”

“I’m supposed to watch you.”

“I’m right here.”

Steve trailed after her. She turned on the TV and sat in front of it, pointedly ignoring him. He took the opportunity to use his inhaler, and he immediately felt calmer—amazing how being able to breathe properly made being left alone with a bratty child seem more manageable. “Why do you use that thing?” Natasha asked, still not looking at him.

“My lungs are sick. Its medicine that helps me breathe.”

“Momma said you’re really sick.”

“Yeah, I am.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What happens if you get really sick when you’re supposed to be watching me?”

“I dunno. I guess you have to call someone.”

“I’m not supposed to use the phone.”

“If it’s an emergency, I think you are. You know how to call the police?”

“Yuh-huh.”

“You’d do that if something happened to me, and then call your mom. You know your mom’s cell phone number?”

“It’s on the phone,” she said, looking back at the TV.

Steve glanced at the clock. Only five minutes had passed. “How long are you allowed to watch TV?” He asked, unable to recall what her mother had said.

“Thirty minutes. If you’re not a tattle-tale,” she said, this time glaring over her shoulder at him.

He was frankly amazed at how intimidating she looked. It was impressive. He could take her, though. “We’ll see what happens after this is over.”

When the thirty minutes were up, Steve turned off the television. Natasha glared at him again, and turned it back on. He turned it off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Steve finally got up and pulled the plug. Natasha actually growled at him. She went to plug it back in and he tutted at her. “Ah, ah, ah, can’t play with the plugs.”

“It’s not playing if you broke it and I wanna fix it!” She shouted, stamping a foot for emphasis.

“No plugs.”

She shoved him--or rather, she tried to; small he might be but she was smaller. “You’re mean, Steve!”

At this, she bolted away from him, and Steve sighed heavily, resigned to chasing her around the house for the next twenty minutes. He combed the downstairs, even the basement, for where she might have hidden. He came up the basement stairs and rounded the corner to the main stairs, calling, “Natasha, if I have to come up there to find you, your mom’s—AAAAAAAAAARGH!”

“ATTACK!” Natasha screeched, jumping from the banister and onto Steve’s back.

Fifteen minutes later, when their mothers returned from their trip to the grocery store, they found Steve tied up on the floor with a jump-rope, and a small, plush octopus stuffed in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I spent the last year surrounded by six-year olds. Natasha here draws heavily from two little girls I taught. Six-year old girls are terrifying when they put their minds to it.


	14. Caught watching them rake the leaves

He was raking the leaves.

She sipped at her hot cider, leaning against the window frame, watching with appreciation at the way his jacket molded around his shoulders, bunching up around his biceps. Every now and then, the wind would gust up, and some of his hard work would be ruined, or more leaves would break free and flutter to the ground. He didn’t seem to mind though. She could hear him whistling, muffled slightly through the glass.

The mail truck came by, and Natasha left her prime seat for the most visually appealing show on earth to see what junk had arrived that day. She padded outside in her worn slippers, wrapping her hands around her mug to keep them warm in the chilly afternoon. “Hey, neighbor,” Steve called cheerfully over the sounds of the rake.

“Afternoon,” she replied, nodding in his direction.

Mail gathered, she paused on the porch, setting her mug on the railing as she flicked through Uncle Sam’s daily delivery. Junk, bill, junk junk junk, bill, ad for a store she actually shopped at… She glanced up when she noticed the raking sounds had stopped, just in time to see Steve run at top speed and fling himself into the leaf pile. She realized she was gaping when he got up and grinned at her. “Wanna join?”

She felt herself turning red, shook her head quickly, and disappeared inside. Until she remembered her forgotten cider, whereupon she stood behind the door arguing with herself about going to get it…

There was a knock on the door; she jumped. A large shadow covered most of the patterned glass. She opened it. Steve, smiling, held out her mug. “You left this in your hurry. Didn’t want you to miss it much.”

“Thanks…” Natasha couldn’t quite meet his eyes as she accepted it.

He held out his hand. “Come on, join me. It’s fun,” he wheedled.

She glanced at his hand, then up to his insistent, kind face. Tentatively, she set her mug on the hall table, and placed her hand in his. His face lit up.

Hours later, the leaf piles destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again, and finally bagged for pickup, she invited him in for cider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's October! For the next month I'm going to try to write as many short, Halloween/fall-themed AUs as possible.
> 
> This may be three, or it may be thirty, depending on how life works out.


	15. Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Bucky made fun of him, but Bucky was a pleb with no care for the finer tastes in life. It wasn’t his fault that the finer tastes in life came once a year for a limited time only. And so here Steve was, at Starbucks for the second time that day for his pumpkin spice latte fix.

It was busy—one of the two coffee shops on campus, it usually was—and so Steve took care to have his card ready when he ordered. His phone pinged while he waited, letting him know he’d reached twelve stars and that his next drink or snack was free. As he slid his phone back into his pocket, he looked up and happened to catch the gaze of the cute redheaded barista who seemed to always be working when he came in. He smiled shyly; the lower half of her face was covered by the espresso machine, so he only saw her blink at him once and then look down to what she was doing. Names were called, and Steve shuffled up closer to the counter, until the cute redhead called his name and slid his venti across the counter to him. “Have a nice day,” she said in that almost-mechanical way of someone who is forced to say a thing hundreds of times per day.

He took it and shuffled over to the extras bar, edging his way through a few sophomores chatting animatedly about a group project. He reached for the cinnamon and a stirrer, and popped the lid off—and paused. The pumpkin drizzle wasn’t the usual artful mess, but rather in the shape of a heart. He glanced over the frosted glass to the redhead, her back to him, her ponytail swishing as she moved in the strange barista dance during the rush.

His drink freshly sprinkled with cinnamon and mixed in, Steve took the opportunity to slide into a free chair at a table, giving him a clear view of the redheaded barista. His classes were done for the day, and the rush would disperse as the next class block started in ten minutes. He could get some of his reading done for Friday’s class as well here in Starbucks as he could in his dorm room. Better, even, since Bucky would be home and playing Halo.

He cracked open his American history (1865-1945) textbook and fished a highlighter from his bag, and got to reading. The latte went down easily; he savored the taste almost sinfully. Every few minutes, he glanced up to look at the redheaded barista. He caught her looking at him a few times, and once when she caught him looking at her, he raised his cup in a small toast. Her expression, mixed shock and embarrassment, made him smile wider.

His venti was gone by the time he finished highlighting the pages he was supposed to read. Steve worked a crick out of his neck, rolling his head on his shoulders a few times, and packed his bag. The shop was considerably emptier than it had been an hour ago when he’d arrived. One of the other baristas had taken the moment to disappear into the back for their break, leaving the redheaded girl and a guy he recognized from his lit class cleaning up. Steve decided to take Starbucks up on their free drink offer for the road, and went back to the counter. The redheaded girl was on register at the moment. She barely met his eyes as he ordered. “Steve,” he said when she asked for his name for the cup. “And your name is…?”

She got to work on his order. “Natasha,” she said quietly, barely heard over the espresso machine.

He mirrored her movements along his side of the counter as she worked. “What’s your major?”

“Criminal justice and psychology.”

“Whoa.”

Her eyes snapped up at him, almost accusingly. “What?”

Steve held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “No, I just meant, that’s a heavy workload. And it’s intense. It’s kinda awesome, really.”

Natasha’s face relaxed. “Oh.”

She shook the whipped cream canister. He grinned, and leaned on the pickup counter. “I’m a history major, so, you know, not a lot of career options there. But it’s interesting. And I thought teaching might be fun, so I might look into grad school for it. I spend a lot of time in the library, there’s so much research I have to do for my papers.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” She asked, sliding his finished latte up on the counter.

He picked up a sleeve, popping it open and sliding his cup into it. “Letting you know I’m fairly harmless, so that when I ask you if you want to grab a bite to eat somewhere on Friday night you might say yes?”

Steve wore what he hoped was a cheery, winning smile, but it felt like a desperate plea of ‘oh God please like me you’re super cute and I’m so awful at everything’. Natasha quirked an eyebrow up. “Only fairly harmless?”

His heart leaped. “I mean… Probably. But I think whatever karate classes I took when I was in elementary school can easily be handled by a gal studying CJ.”

She ducked her head, smiling slightly as she wiped the counter. “Well, three-PSLs-a-day-Steve, I happen to be closing on Friday. But… I’m free Saturday. And I’m a vegetarian.”

Steve dug out a pen and grabbed an extra sleeve, writing his number on it. “Text me what time and where. I only know that vegan place downtown.”

He pushed the sleeve towards her, and Natasha picked it up, glancing from the number up to him. “Alright. I’ll see you on Saturday, Steve.”

“Oh, you’ll see me before then, I’m sure,” he said, holding up his latte, and she chuckled. “Until then, Natasha.”

He didn’t see her trace out his number on the sleeve, a small smile on her lips, and pocket it—because he was already out the door and trying to walk like a normal human being and only just managing to keep a slight spring in his step.


	16. Fighting Over Pumpkins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a weird warning, but if you haven't read all of the books in "A Song of Ice and Fire"/"Game of Thrones" and don't want to be spoiled for it... don't read this chapter, because the entire back half of "A Dance With Dragons" is spoiled.
> 
> It went weird places.

There it was.

Round. Taut. Not too big, not too small.

But just as her hands shot out for it, another pair appeared at the same moment. And then she was seeing stars, and her head hurt like a motherfucker, and her butt was in the wet grass and her shirt--tied around her waist--was going to have grass stains. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” a male voice said above her.

“No, its fine, I should have been paying attention…” she mumbled, rubbing the spot where they’d collided.

“Really, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m…” She looked up, at the offered hand to help her to her feet, and her eyes followed the arm (she was a sucker for an arm like that: those veins, those biceps) up to the concerned face framed with blond hair. Then her eyes darted down, because in his arms was her pumpkin. “You bastard!”

“What?”

“That’s my pumpkin!”

“Excuse me? I found it first.”

“I was going for it, and you knocked me out for it!”

“This pumpkin is destined to bear the sigil of House Targaryen, not whatever tripe you have planned for it.”

“Excuse you, a delicate carving of the seal of Greyjoy—”

“You are not defiling my pumpkin with anything related to the ironborn—”

“Oh, and because dragons are so fair against everyone else—”

“Your house is coming to murder Daenerys Stormborn, the rightful queen of Westros!”

“Your queen can’t govern herself out of a paper bag, no wonder she took the easy way out back to the Dothraki Sea—”

“She was trying to get control of Drogon—”

Natasha was on her feet by now, though the difference in their height made her think she would have been better off on the ground. His jaw was set in a stubborn way, and his eyes hard as flint as he said, “Look, for the Greyjoy seal you’re better off with a taller pumpkin. Look for something this width, but more ovular. This is round, for a round sigil.”

“It’s a stylized version.”

“So then you’re just carving a giant squid onto it.”

She huffed, and whirled on one boot, marching away. “This isn’t over, Targaryen!”

“My name’s Steve, Greyjoy!”

“I don’t care!”

* * *

 

She did manage to find a taller, less perfect pumpkin. Worse, she realized he was right, her stylized sketch did just look like a giant squid and less like it had any kind of meaning. ‘ _Whatever_ ,’ she thought, scrapping the sketch and starting over. _‘I’m right about the books._ ’


	17. Accidentally Dressed in a Couple Costume

“Oh my God, are you two together?” A Playboy bunny asked loudly.

The hallowed halls of Alpha Rho Phi were jammed with coeds, red solo cups, and enough fake blood for three low-budget monster movies. Halloween was the Spring Break of fall semester, jammed into one night instead of five. There were a lot of people, so Steve wasn’t entirely sure the bunny was talking to him. He looked around. “Are you… you’re talking to me, right?”

“Duh. I wasn’t sure at first, but the orange ascot was like, duh, Susie, why wouldn’t he be? Freddie from Scooby-Doo! And your girlfriend is Daphne? So adorable.”

“My girlf—”

A girl so short he thought she must still be in high school wrapped her arms around his, grinning. “Hi, sweetie, I lost you for a minute!” Even her voice sounded young, almost as high-pitched as the Playboy bunny.

“ _God_ , that’s cute,” the bunny, Susie, gushed. “I couldn’t get my boyfriend to be Hef. You’d think a guy would _want_ to walk around in pajamas and a bathrobe all night, but _whatever_ , wear your hockey jersey and pretend it’s a costume.”

“I know, right? Guys don’t _get_ Halloween,” the short Daphne said.

“So true. Whatever. I’m gonna go see if anyone wants to do body shots, you in?”

“Maybe later,” Steve and ‘Daphne’ chorused.

“ _Ugh_ , you’re so cute I can’t stand it. Have fun!” Susie twiddled her fingers and sashayed away.

‘Daphne’ dropped his arm. “Well that was an exhausting three minutes,” she said, her voice dropping about three octaves below what it had been. “Sorry about that, you looked like you were about to panic.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m Steve, by the way,” he said, sticking his hand out.

She eyeballed it for a minute, looking bemused. “Seriously, you’re at a frat party and you shake hands?”

“Yes?”

She smiled, and took it. “I’m Natasha, and you’re kind of adorable.”

Steve’s lips twitched as he tried not to laugh. “I see the Valley Girl thing wasn’t entirely an act.”

“ _Whatever_ , Freddie.”

He did laugh this time. “Can I get you a drink? I mean, it’s weird we’re kind of dressed like it so we might as well play it off like we’re together.”

She nodded, and they made their way through the crowds towards the kitchen. “My roommate dragged me along, and between the two of us I could put together a decent closet costume. What’s your excuse, orange ascot?”

“It’s a bandana, and kind of the same. My roommate is the one dressed as Shaggy doing kegstands in the front yard.”

“No shit, you’re roommates with Barnes? I have psych with him.”

“The one and only,” Steve said, handing her a beer and letting her open it so she knew he didn’t do anything sketchy to it. “I’m sure he spends half of it asleep.”

They tapped their cans together in cheers. They turned out to have several friends in common; it was baffling that they hadn’t met before. Every so often, someone else would comment on their couple costume, and every time Natasha would turn on her Valley Girl persona like a light switch. Every time Steve would try not to laugh, and she would have  biting comments about them after they left. By the end of the night (which Steve thought came too soon), they’d traded numbers; Natasha was a self-proclaimed emoji-abuser, and every time one of them left to wait in line for the bathroom his phone was filled with hieroglyphic messages.

It was late when the party finally shut down, so he offered to walk her back to her dorm. Halfway there, however, his stomach protested the lack of food loudly, causing Natasha to laugh. “Waffle House is always open, wanna go grab something to eat?”

And that was how Steve and Natasha made the Halloween walk-of-shame at sunrise with everyone else, though possibly the only ones who hadn’t engaged sexually… something Steve thought he might want to rectify before the next one.


	18. Dressed as a Sexy Police Officer, You Should Arrest Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capping off Halloween/fall-month with this, which contains lots of sex.
> 
> The following sexy things happen: handcuffs/restraint and roleplaying with some dubious consent bordering on noncon. (I might be warning this high, but I want to be safe)

It was after ten in the evening, the candles in the pumpkins on the front porch flickering in the light breeze. The thick clouds overhead threatened some sort of precipitation before midnight, and with how cold it was, she would bet it would be snow. “I’m home,” Natasha called softly, closing the door behind her.

The lack of thumps on the floor upstairs signaled that James was already in bed. Her husband poked his head out of the kitchen. “There’s my girl,” he said, smiling wide. “Not too bad a day, I hope?”

There were still pieces of candy left in the bowl on the table. Natasha snatched a Whopper and unwrapped it, popping it into her mouth as she spoke. “Caught some kids trying to t.p. the principal’s house, but other than that it was a peaceful Halloween for once. Of course, I don’t have night duty, so I may have reports in the morning that say otherwise.”

Steve came up to her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her lightly on the nose. Natasha nuzzled his in return. “How was trick-or-treat? Did James behave?”

“James was fine,” Steve told her, tucking her hair behind her ears. “We had a slight mishap when the horse’s head fell off, but a quick duct-taping saved the day and the Lone Ranger rode off in search of more candy.”

Natasha didn’t like to miss little things with her son, like Halloween: she’d missed three already, and he was six years old, but working the more grueling holidays of the year (like Memorial Day or St. Patrick’s Day) meant she was able to call in favors for birthdays, or have Christmas off (which meant more to her husband anyway). Steve helped by taking pictures of everything; he’d known going into their marriage that as a cop she’d work strange hours and holidays and didn’t care, and for that she was eternally grateful.

Now, Natasha was fingering the straps of her husband’s apron. “Now, what kind of costume do you call this?” She asked.

“The kind that says ‘Hello, dear, you have dinner waiting for you in the oven’,” he replied.

“Very clever,” she teased, and kissed him.

“I like your costume too.”

She looked down, unsure of what he meant. She was just wearing her lieutenant’s uniform. When she didn’t respond immediately, Steve’s hands moved down to her hips and pulled her against him, and she felt his arousal. An eyebrow went up, her lips twitching in amusement. “Really?”

He kissed her forehead and then murmured in her ear, “I’ve been a very bad boy, officer. You should probably arrest me before I do something worse.”

Natasha hummed in amusement, her hands sliding up and down his arms. “Are you confessing? Or do I have to,” quick as lightning she had his arms off of her and behind his back, “interrogate you?”

“Oh, you should probably interrogate me. Just to be sure.”

Five minutes later, she had him cuffed to a chair in the kitchen (she also made sure the oven was off, because the last thing she needed was mockery from the guys at the fire station), and was circling him like a hawk. “At what time, would you say, did the incident occur?”

“Don’t I get a lawyer?” Steve asked.

“It’s ‘don’t I get a lawyer, _ma’am’_ ,” Natasha snapped, falling into her role easily.

His eyes were dark; he loved it when she played bad cop on him. When they met, years ago, she never would have guessed that the affable, honor-bound Army captain liked to be stroked and slapped. “Don’t I get a lawyer, _ma’am_?” He asked, his voice husky.

“I don’t want any witnesses,” she hissed, leaning in close, running her fingers through his hair and yanking his head back.

He drew labored breaths. She started unbuttoning his shirt, having already rid him of the apron. “What time did the incident occur?” She purred.

“A-around four.”

“Just the once?”

“N-no.”

Her nails gently scraped down his chest. “No, what?” Her voice dangerously soft.

When he didn’t answer, she yanked his head back by his hair again. “No, _what_?”

“No, ma’am!” He gasped.

“How many more times?” She kept one hand fisted in his hair, and with the other pressed her nails against him harder.

“T-three, ma’am,” he shuddered against her touch.

“Three? Four times in an afternoon… what might cause a nice boy like you to cause such trouble?” Natasha asked, keeping her voice pleasant as she let go of his hair and finished with his shirt, pushing it away from his chest and down his shoulders, admiring the view of her disheveled husband fighting a losing battle for his sanity.

Steve met her eyes. They’d played through this kind of scene dozens of times, but she was always taken aback by his intensity. “My wife,” he rasped.

She smirked. “Your wife? What about her?”

“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s all knives and steel, hiding her generous heart from everyone, except me, and our son. She’s got hair like fire, and her eyes burn like embers.” Natasha ducked her head to hide her blush; ten years of marriage and he still made her blush like a schoolgirl. She knelt before him, and instead of speaking, she dragged her nails down his skin to tell him to continue. “She’s got this… she’s athletic and toned, she’s so damn sexy and God if she doesn’t know it and use it against me. I could spend my life kissing her, my mouth on her breasts, fucking her with my tongue, and never want anything else. I missed her today. Four times, officer, I got hard just thinking about her, but I didn’t… I didn’t do anything about it, I wanted to save it for her, show her just how much I missed her.”

“And now you’re in trouble with the law,” Natasha murmured.

“She’ll miss me if I don’t get home soon.”

She lifted her head, and started to get up, bracing herself on his knees to get in his face. “She’s not here. All you’ve got is me, and your little love story has got me all riled up.”

Steve’s breathing quickened. “No. No, I can’t, she—”

Natasha made quick work of his belt, as he protested. She undid the buttons and zipper on his jeans, and worked to slide everything off—she was always amused that despite his convincing protests, he was always very accommodating about getting his pants off. He was at full attention, and she grasped his length firmly. His protests faltered when she dragged her tongue up the vein and swirled her tongue around the tip. She took him into her mouth fully, and his protests died away, whispered begging taking their place. “Please… oh, _God_ , Natasha…”

When he started to thrust into her mouth, she came away. Steve strained against the cuffs, lost in lust. She smirked, and stood, dropping her pants and unbuttoning her uniform shirt. She straddled him, brushing their sexes against each other. He jerked, trying to enter her, and she shushed him with a finger to his lips. “ _Please_ … need you…”

She kissed him, and reached behind her to undo her bra (she was thankful to her earlier self for going strapless today). The offending article was tossed aside, and her husband’s head bent to suckle. It was her turn to gasp, her fingers threading through his hair again. She was hot, warmth flooding her veins. In another minute she _needed friction_ or else she was going to explode without even _doing_ anything, and pulled his head back so she could lift herself up and sheath him inside of her.

Steve moaned, thrusting up for more. They found a rhythm, as her hands went under his shirt and drew new battle scars on his back, his mouth biting and sucking wherever he could, their sighs, moans, and ragged breaths filling the kitchen.

Natasha felt the coil inside tighten. “Almost,” she whispered. “Almost, almost, almost…”

“Come on, babe, let me see you…” Steve grunted, trying to angle himself as he thrust upwards.

She reached down between them, rubbing her clit to quicken the pace, and had to bite into his shoulder to stop herself from shouting when she came. He followed a few moments later, stilling under her as he rode his own orgasm out. She dropped her head onto his shoulder, panting. He kissed her neck. “You still there?” He asked.

“Yeah…”

Her stomach growled just then, causing them both to laugh. With regret, she untangled herself from him, and retrieved the key, freeing him. Steve rubbed his wrists to get the feeling back and disappeared into the bathroom to clean up. Natasha didn’t bother, merely pulling her panties back on, buttoning her shirt a little ways up, and retrieving her dinner from the oven.

When he returned, he took turns feeding her the homemade French fries or stealing them himself while she devoured the chicken. When the clock in the hall chimed eleven, she was doing the dishes while he stood behind her, arms wrapped around her and distracting her with kisses. She shut the water off, drying her hands while he nuzzled her hair. “Look,” she told him, gesturing out the window.

“It’s snowing,” he said.

“James will be happy,” she commented. “Candy and a snowman, all in the same week.”

Steve kissed her temple. “I love you.”

Natasha leaned back fully into his embrace. “I love you, too.”


	19. Christmas Canon-Divergence-AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a Secret Santa for hawkngbird. If we go on the MCU timeline, this would take place in 2018.

If someone, seven years ago, had shown her a vision of what her life would become, she would have laughed herself sick. She was one of the most accomplished operatives in the world; her very name was whispered with reverence and fear. Then SHIELD went under, and things got messier. It had taken a long time, but she’d settled old scores, buried skeletons, come to peace with her long, blood-stained past. She had been making new starts.

An arm snaked around her, and the other plucked the ornament from her hand. “I’m allowed to decorate the damn tree, Rogers,” Natasha frowned.

“You hate Christmas,” he said simply.

“ _You_  don’t. I’m being accommodating,” she countered.

Steve hummed in amusement. Tony barked a laugh. “ _You_  being accommodating. You should be pregnant more often.”

Natasha whirled to glare at him, just in time to see Pepper reach over the back of the couch and flick his ear. “Stop it,” she told him. “Or you’re going on that press tour with me.”

Tony immediately pouted. Natasha took the ornament back from her husband and hung it off a bough. She stuck her tongue out at him—childish, but it was effective. Steve made a face at her in return, and hung up a different ornament. Behind them, Clint twirled an arrow between his fingers while digging in the ornament box with his free hand. “I swear I could land it on the top, no problem,” he was telling Bruce.

“No.”

“There wouldn’t even be a mark on the ceiling!”

“No,” Natasha echoed Bruce, and smirked. Steve’s other arm came around her, and she leaned back into his embrace without thinking.

Seven years ago there had been none of this. There’d been an apartment she’d barely lived in down in D.C., a steady stream of work. She hadn’t been unhappy: she was Fury’s shooting hand, comfortable in her place in the shadows, doling out his judgments. There had been pizza and beer with Clint on the weekends they were home, a stray cat she liked to feed when she could, a spin class she sometimes attended to feel normal. Then she’d been assigned to Tony, assessing him for the Avengers Initiative, and everything in her life after that had gone to hell. (Oh yes, she’d pin the blame on Tony for anything—he deserved it after drinking her good vodka all in one night with barely a hangover as punishment) Stopping alien invasions, uncovering Nazi plots, dismantling her old-new life, giving herself a blank slate to build a new-new life on. Now she was living in New York City on a more or less permanent basis with the oddest cobbled-together family of misfits she’d ever encountered, saving the world. If she had been happy before, she didn’t know what to describe herself as now: living her life, teasing her boys whenever possible, carving out a new place for herself, having  _fun_ , decorating a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve because her husband loved the holiday and their misfit family.

Being married. Having a child.

Perhaps that had been the most unexpected part of it all. She’d never seriously factored family, love, children into her life before. She’d never thought she  _could_  have children, thanks to the KGB, let alone if she’d make a good mother. It had, admittedly, passed through her mind before, a flitting daydream with a man or two—she’d come seriously close with Clint, but in the end they were too alike, and she didn’t want to become just another ex-wife to him—but it was just that: a daydream. A passing fancy when things were grim, when she was waiting for the signal to run in and shoot at something. But something was different this time.

Steve was different.

It had taken her a while to realize how much she missed him after he and Sam went looking for Bucky. Before, they’d had a comfortable working relationship, but the SHIELD incident revealed how many walls he had up around her—and who he really was under them. She hadn’t known that Steve long—the real Steve: the little punk whose mouth ran faster than his legs could, the skinny, sickly boy he still was at heart—but she missed his presence all the same. And then when he’d almost died last year… She’d hardly gone home, sometimes just finding a locked room to curl up in for an hour or so before going back to watch over him, all the medicine in the world hooked into him to keep him alive long enough for the serum to get to work. She didn’t realize until then what she’d almost lost. Now, Natasha put her hands over his, and laced their fingers together, squeezing. He squeezed in return.

The door hissed open from the corridor. “UNCLE CLINT!” A tiny voice shrieked, and rapid steps gave the barest warning for Clint to drop his arrow in time for Jeanne Marie, Jane and Thor’s daughter, to launch her tiny self at him.

Natasha went to grab more ornaments, absently rubbing her aching lower back. If Thor’s family was here, they needed to get the tree decorated  _now_. Tony huffed, taking a drink from his eggnog. “Well, clearly we know who the favorite uncle is.”

Clint hoisted Jeanne Marie high in the air. “I’m the most fun, right, kid?” He asked as she giggled.

“She just knows who has the candy,” Bruce quipped, nodding to the assortment of peppermint sticks in Clint’s shirt pocket. Natasha echoed his sentiment.

“What’s she got on her head?” Steve asked, taking some of Natasha’s ornaments and hanging them up.

“Goat horns,” Jane explained, looking harried as she came in. “It’s an Asgardian Yule tradition, the youngest member of the family dresses like a goat and sings…”

The little girl, with her golden-horned headdress atop her blonde, coiled braids and gray, fuzzy pinafore and cape, burst into a three-year old’s version of “Jingle Bells”. Her aunts and uncles clapped politely when she finished. Jeanne Marie wiggled free from Clint and rushed over to Steve and Natasha. “Daddy and Uncle Loki helped!”

Steve and Natasha traded wide-eyed glances from either side of the tree; the others did the same. Jane huffed. “Loki adores her; he wouldn’t use her for any tricks.”

Pepper made soothing noises and led Jane to the food. Natasha went to kick the ornament box away from Clint, so she didn’t have as far to go to retrieve more. Steve crouched down and asked Jeanne Marie to twirl for him, which she did. “Cousin here?” She demanded when she was done, putting her hands on Natasha’s stomach.

“Not yet,” she told her, handing the girl an ornament to hang low.

She did, and her hands went right back onto her aunt’s belly. “When?”

“A few more weeks, not long after New Year’s,” Natasha promised.

The little girl pouted. “Want to play!”

Her eyes went round when the baby kicked. Natasha smiled. “The baby wants to play too, it’s just a little too soon to come out.”

She put Jeanne Marie to work on the lower parts of the tree, while Steve reached high and finished the top. Within minutes, the decorating was finally done, all but for the star on top. They stepped back to admire their work, Steve’s arms going around Natasha again, Jeanne Marie bouncing from one foot to the other in excitement. The door slid open again, and Sam walked in, a reserved Bucky following him. Natasha felt Steve go still as the room fell silent; Clint stood, and came over to scoop up Jeanne Marie. “Hey, kiddo, I bet Uncle Tony has a fun way you and me can get the star on top of the tree,” he said, and Tony got to his feet, rambling about hover-tech, which prompted Pepper and Jane to pounce on them in protest as the room erupted into noise again, and Natasha shot a grateful look at Clint’s retreating back as Sam and Bucky came over to them.

“He wanted to come,” Sam explained quietly.

“I’m brainwashed, not deaf,” Bucky said dryly.

Sam had been working on Bucky’s rehabilitation for the last few years. He wasn’t comfortable in crowds just yet, and now-ten people were pushing the limit on his comfort zone—one being a child and another being pregnant didn’t ease anyone’s concerns. However, Bucky being here at all, let alone  _wanting_  to come, was a big step. Natasha hadn’t even seen him since the Ultron incident, when he’d taken out the bots that were gunning for Steve. Bucky met her eyes briefly, and gave a half-hearted smile. “I really just wanted proof that Steve’s havin’ a kid and all.”

Natasha took his good hand and placed it on her stomach: the kid was wiggly tonight, making her more uncomfortable than usual. Bucky froze for a moment, before a hesitant smile bloomed on his face. “Is it…”

“A surprise,” Steve said, and Natasha bit her tongue on the urge to tease him for the misty look in his eyes. “We wanted it to be a surprise, like the old days.”

Bucky nodded to the rings on their hands. “I’ve seen Steve’s but this… Never thought I’d see Steve catch a girl’s eye long enough for it, honestly.”

“Oh thanks,” Steve said dryly.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for little punks,” Natasha ribbed her husband good-naturedly.

“Really, man, it’s probably a good thing I’ve been a lunatic for the last century, or I’d’ve swept her up too,” Bucky said, mock-serious, and as her husband and his best friend taunted each other she watched as years of tension drain away from his body to reveal the young man he’d been when he’d fallen from the train all those years ago.

Bucky’s smile grew to a full-blown grin as the baby kicked him right in the palm. He crouched, face-level with the swell. “Hey there,” he said softly. “You’re already a fighter, aren’t you? Ready to be a little pain in the ass, I bet, just like your dad.”

Steve turned abruptly, and even Natasha felt a little emotional at this show of progress. “Kid, this is your Uncle Bucky,” she said, years of training taking over to keep her voice from betraying how she felt. “He’s old as dirt, just like your fossil of a father, but we like him anyway. I bet if you ask him real nice, he’ll beat up anyone you want him to, like he did for your dad.”

It was Bucky’s turn to look away, but not fast enough for Natasha to miss his smile. Sam crossed his arms and tried not to appear affected by everything—and failing miserably—while changing the subject and asking, “Why is Thor’s kid dressed like a goat?”

“Some Asgard tradition—” Steve started to explain, turning to face them again, when Jeanne Marie shouted, “AIM! FIRE!” gleefully from across the room.

Four things happened at once: Pepper gasped, Jane dropped her crystal tumbler on the stone floor, Bucky pivoted on his knees, his metal arm whirring as it armed itself, and Steve’s arm went around Natasha as he forced her down and shielded her with his body while two objects whizzed overhead. The baby protested viciously, and Natasha winced. “What the hell is going on?!”

After a minute, Steve got up cautiously. “Are you okay?”

She rubbed her belly soothingly, trying to calm the kid down from the temper tantrum going on in her womb. “Give me a bit.”

“Bucky?”

The other man shook his head, his breathing methodical as he tried to reengage with reality and not his brainwashing. Natasha kept an eye on him as she calmed herself and the baby down; she had a knife hidden in her pendant, but she doubted Steve would let her fight if it came to it. Finally, Bucky relaxed; the metal arm whirred again as it disengaged to lockdown. She relaxed too, and guilt bit at her for not trusting Bucky or Sam’s abilities to humanize him again. She glanced up. “The hell was all that?” She asked as Steve helped her gently to her feet.

Sam pointed up. Everyone’s gaze followed his finger, to where two arrows stuck in the ceiling. One had the star for the top of the tree attached by a string: the star sat perfectly at the peak. From the other hung a sprig of mistletoe, swaying gently over Steve’s head. Clint dropped his bow to his side; Jeanne Marie clutched at his forehead from her position on his shoulders. “Aww, arrow, you were supposed to let go,” Clint told the star-laden arrow.

Bucky rolled his eyes as he got to his feet, muttering something to himself about needing another cryo-freeze. “No marks in the ceiling, huh?” Bruce asked.

“Again! Again!” Jeanne Marie begged.

“Absolutely not,” Jane, Tony, and Pepper chorused, and then looked at each other in surprise.

Bruce coughed delicately, pointing back to the mistletoe. “I believe there’s a Christmas tradition failing to be met.”

Steve looked up at the mistletoe again, and then grinned at the three people around him. Bucky’s answer was to shove him. Sam grinned and shook his head. “I’m too scared of your wife, man.”

“As you should be,” Natasha flashed him her most sinister smile, and grabbed Steve by the collar, dragging him down to her for a long, languid kiss.

Distantly, she heard Tony wolf-whistle, and she stuck up her middle finger. “There’s a child in here,” Jane scolded.

Natasha pulled away from the kiss. “Sorry,” she told her.

Steve looked about as dazed as she felt. “Wow. I must have been really good this year,” he quipped.

She hummed in amusement, and hugged him as close as her body would allow. “I dunno, there’s evidence here supporting that you were pretty naughty…”

“Still a child in here!”

Natasha broke down into giggles, and Steve kissed her again, dragging her away from the mistletoe lest they be there all night—not that she would complain, but she would like to go to bed eventually. When she didn’t answer his question about how she felt, Steve made her sit down for a while. The others started to bring in the gifts for tomorrow morning to set up around the finished tree; Steve brought her something to drink and a bit of food and sat with her while Jeanne Marie instructed her uncles on proper gift arrangement. Steve rubbed soothing circles on her back, which helped some. Natasha finally asked Jane if Thor was making an appearance or if he was caught up in something in another world, and Jane just held a finger to her lips, smiling mysteriously. Natasha quirked her eyebrow in amusement, and played along.

There was a bright flash of light outside, and Jeanne Marie gasped, running to the window. “Look! Look! A star!”

Steve helped Natasha to her feet as everyone crowded at the windows to watch what looked like a fireball roar across the night sky. There was a collective gasp in awe as the fireball flared briefly, and then dissipated. “I’m gonna get a phone call about that tomorrow,” Tony muttered.

Natasha detected footsteps behind them, and turned slightly to see Thor, dressed in his Earth clothes, crouch down behind his daughter. “Did you see Old Man Winter, daughter mine?”

The girl gasped, and shrieked her joy, throwing herself into her father’s arms. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

He lifted her with ease, laughing, and hugged Jane with his free arm. “I told you I would be here for the Midgard Yuletide festivities, did I not?”

“You did,” Jane agreed. “However, Old Man Winter was a little late delivering you, and its way past a certain little girl’s  _bedtime_ …”

Jane led her family away as her daughter protested having to go to bed. Bucky relaxed visibly when the door shut behind them. “Let’s make our excuses soon too,” Natasha told her husband quietly.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Steve asked.

“I’m thirty-five weeks pregnant,” she answered, “I think I get to go to bed early if I want to.”

* * *

In their quarters later that night, Natasha pulled on one of Steve’s shirts with a happy sigh. “After the holidays, I’m not wearing a bra for the next six months,” she said.

“You won’t hear me complaining, but you’ll have to punch Stark more,” he told her, smiling, as he stripped off his Christmas sweater and got ready for bed.

“Everything comes with a price,” she said, shrugging.

She sat and flopped on their bed, propped up by half a dozen pillows. Sleeping flat on her back had ended a few months ago, but she’d learned to deal with it. She shoved the heating pad she’d warmed up under her, hoping to ease the ache. Steve went to his side of the bed and sat on the edge. She heard the drawer in his bed stand open and close. “Old Man Winter already visited us too,” he said, rolling over onto his side next to her, and presenting her with a flat, giftwrapped box.

“Steve, we said no presents,” Natasha told him, frowning slightly.

“I know.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“I know. It’s okay. You’ve already given me a lot of gifts this year, Nat,” Steve told her. “And I count this one as just a belated one.”

He smoothed his shirt over her belly, his hand lingering. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not technically for you, it’s for all of us.”

“Oh well now I really feel great, thanks,” Natasha scoffed.

“Nat. Open the damn present,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.

She glared at the box for a moment, rolled her eyes, and snatched it from him. She muttered to herself in three languages as she tore the paper off, revealing a silver photo frame. There were four spaces, a large empty one, and three smaller ones that had a photo of each of them and the sonogram. There was a heart in the corner, with a ruby, topaz, and garnet set in it: the three birthstones. “See, we can replace this with a real photo eventually, but this works for now. And we can have our first family photo up here too,” Steve was saying, pointing as he spoke.

Natasha just stared at it, unsure how to respond. She felt Steve’s gaze on her. “Nat?”

“Steve, it’s…”

“It’s kinda corny and sentimental, I know, but… it’s our family.”

She wasn’t sentimental, not like he was, and maybe it was the hormones working against her but she lightly fingered the stones in the corner anyway. “Steve, it’s beautiful. There’s just… something wrong.”

He stilled. “What’s wrong?”

Belatedly, she remembered her earlier protests, and considered that perhaps she’d phrased that wrong. She turned to look at him, smiling wryly. “No, not… I just think the birthstone’s wrong.”

Steve frowned, and then it dawned on him. “Now?” He asked incredulously.

She started to laugh. “Yeah, I think you’re getting a Christmas present after all.”

* * *

They argued a lot before the epidural kicked in, and even quite a bit after, about names. It wasn’t something they’d absolutely discussed—not knowing the gender and Steve wanting to ‘get to know them’ before naming them were their biggest obstacles—but Natasha put her foot down on anything resembling a Christmas-y name. “No Noel or Carol or Holly or whatever,” she said, her words a little slurred while the medicine worked its magic, “It’s bad enough the kid’s going to make me learn to like Christmas anyway.”

Their son was born on Christmas afternoon. He remained unnamed until the evening, when Natasha was more or less aware of her surroundings; after a lot more arguing that made the Treaty of Paris look tame, they eventually decided on James. “You really want to make Bucky cry, don’t you?” Natasha asked.

Steve shrugged, holding James and carefully running a finger up and down his soft cheek. “I owe him a lot. Naming my kid after him is the least I can do.”

Natasha settled comfortably back in her bed. “What about a middle name?”

“What’s the thing you do in Russia?”

“Patronyms. So now you’re completely taking over this naming thing,” she teased. “James Stefanovich. It’s got to be with an ‘f’ to make it more authentic.”

Steve was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I was thinking more Natalianovich.”

Natasha sat up again, brows knit together. “Natalievich,” she corrected softly. “Steve…”

“Hey, I was just there at the beginning of this, I did none of the heavy lifting.”

She huffed, sitting back again. “You’re being very noble today, naming your kid after people who might not deserve it.”

He shoved her leg lightly. She hardly felt it, which meant she was still fairly drugged. “Noble has nothing to do with it. You just gave me the best Christmas present ever.”

“You’re taking the next one,” she told him stubbornly. He wasn’t going to budge on this, she knew that. “You can take on that responsibility. In fact, take the whole hog: Stephen Stefanovich. Or Stephanie Stefanovna. Whichever it ends up being.”

Steve looked up at her, grinning. “We’re having another one?”

Natasha wanted to kick him, but she wasn’t that mobile yet. “Shut up.”

Bruce entered with a light knock on the door. He’d been hovering nearby since the morning, running between the hospital floor of the tower and the residential area to keep everyone up to speed. Likely he’d been outside and overheard everything, and thought—correctly—that it was a good time to interrupt. “Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Kid’s got a name,” Natasha said, shoving her hair back from her face, leaving her fingers tangled in it.

“James Natalievich Rogers,” Steve said, unable to keep the grin off his face.

Bruce raised an eyebrow slightly, but didn’t comment further than, “There’s a mouthful. I have a herd of people out here wanting to check on you, but I am fully willing to use drastic measures to throw them all out if you aren’t up to it.”

“Please throw them out,” Natasha said, grinning. She liked her family of misfits enough, even loved a few of them, but she was exhausted and knew she looked like hell. Even Avengers were allowed some vanities. “But they can look at the kid through the glass.”

Steve ended up holding James for everyone to look at through the window to her room. Natasha could see some of them through the gap in the curtain hiding her from view; Clint was the only one who saw her watching them, and signed to her that he was going to sneak in later and see her anyway. She rolled her eyes.

Finally, someone came to take James to the nursery, and Bruce made good on his promise to kick everyone out. Natasha couldn’t see if he actually had to go green for it or not, but if Jeanne Marie was there he likely didn’t. When they were gone, Steve budged Natasha over to slide in the narrow hospital bed next to her. “This is ridiculous,” she complained as he draped his arm around her shoulder. “I smell, I’m sweaty, this bed is way too small…”

He kissed her forehead. “And I love you.”

That shut up her protests. She tucked herself into him. With the silence and the lack of baby and people she didn’t care for hovering, her energy levels were finally crashing. “Was Bucky there? I couldn’t see everyone.”

“No, but Sam said he’d bring him by tomorrow alone. I think he pushed his limits enough yesterday.”

“Don’t tell him James’ name until I can see his reaction.”

Steve chuckled, his breath stirring her hair. “Who’s the sadist now?”

“Always me, Rogers, never forget that,” Natasha mumbled.

He kissed the top of her head. “Go to sleep, Nat.”

“Love you…”

“Merry Christmas.”

Natasha hemmed, but said, “Merry Christmas, Steve.”


	20. Valentine's + Best Friends + Rom-Com

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a mashup of prompts, for what just might be the fluffiest thing I've ever written!
> 
> First we have the obvious, Valentine's Day. Next was a request for "high school AU where Steve and Nat are best friends and have been their whole lives, and they start to fall for each other. Nat fights the attraction because she doesn't want her relationship with Steve to be ruined if they break up." And finally, **unreluctantone** wanted Steve and Nat to star in a romantic comedy.

Every year, without fail, they'd find themselves single on Valentine's Day. And every year, without fail, they spent it together.

"We're two single people spending the dorkiest holiday together, no intentions attached. Suck it, Hallmark!" Natasha declared the second year.

It started their junior year of high school. First Steve dated Bucky, and then Natasha dated Bucky. Then Bucky didn't want to date anyone so Natasha took Steve to the Sweethearts Dance instead. The second year, they ditched the dance and made kettle corn and watched horror movies in Natasha's basement.

In college, Steve always seemed to date people who put too much emphasis on the day. Natasha found herself on the receiving end of a lot of freaking out because she  _didn't_  care about the holiday. And they'd laugh it off and find themselves in each other's company, doing anything they wanted to. One year, they went ice skating on the pond in the middle of campus after classes were done for the day-until someone from the grounds crew came out screaming at them. Another year they sat in Natasha's dorm room (her roommate was out for the night) while Natasha cried her eyes out over the guy who had dumped her the day before-she'd actually  _liked_  this one. They split a bag of Hershey Kisses and watched trashy TV shows until they both fell asleep, Natasha curled against Steve.

After, even when they went in different directions for careers and living arrangements, they'd send texts around the day. ' _So, what are your plans tomorrow?' 'Hot date with Netflix' 'Skype me in :)'_. A business trip found Natasha in the same city as Steve one Valentine's Day, and they went out to dinner to catch up.

Then, when they were twenty-nine, Steve looked at the calendar and realized the fourteenth was drawing near. He and Natasha hadn't talked much since her birthday-holidays and work and family stuff had gotten in the way-but that had never stopped them before. ' _Hey_ ,' he texted after dinner. Bucky was vegged out on his couch-crashing until he got his own place-so Steve took up a spot on the recliner. ' _You doing anything next Tuesday?_ '

The three dots appeared almost instantly. ' _Oh God. I'm so sorry, Steve, I have plans._ '

Steve felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Thirteen years of tradition, broken. Maybe he should have seen that coming-especially since they hadn't talked in almost two months-but this was their  _thing_. Still, he couldn't fault her. After so long, it was really about time that  _one_  of them had their shit together. ' _Hey, it's no biggie,_ ' he tapped out. ' _Guess our streak had to be broken eventually, huh?_ '

She sent back a string of sad emojis and Steve tossed his phone aside on the end table. He leaned back, running his fingers through his hair with a sigh. Bucky looked away from Sports Center. "What's up, man?"

"Nothing, it's… nothing," Steve said, and sat back up. It wasn't nothing, but trying to explain it seemed a bit daunting. He shook his head, and changed the subject. "How are we looking for the season?"

"Like shit," Bucky replied, looking back at the TV.

Steve found it difficult to asleep that night. His bed warmed to uncomfortable levels from his tossing and turning. Why did it bother him so much that Natasha had plans? She was allowed to have plans. The strict understanding, through everything, was that if something came up it came up. They hung out together on Valentine's Day because it was stupid to be alone and feel sad about being alone. Friends were totally allowed to hang out on Valentine's Day, it wasn't just for people in love-

The last dozen years of his life played through his mind: Natasha asking him to the Sweethearts Dance, how stunning she looked in her dark red dress when he went to pick her up. When she sneaked out her bedroom window and they drove out to the quarry to watch the meteor shower for her birthday, how warm she was next to him in the freezing November air. That trip to the beach over spring break freshman year, and Natasha had almost made herself sick laughing at Bucky being chased by a flock of seagulls. How the snowflakes stuck in her hair and her eyelashes when they went out in that blizzard during their sophomore year of college and tried to make an igloo. Every time she fell asleep doing her calculus homework on his futon, her mouth hanging open slightly and her hair falling out of the messy bun she'd secured with a pencil. The way she'd practically shove him at anyone he mentioned aloud that he'd thought was cute. Last year, when she'd crashed at his place during a business trip, using the hotel money to order them Thai food instead, and they'd wound up falling asleep on his bed together watching Hitchcock movies.

"Fuck," Steve said aloud.

He was in love with Natasha.

He'd been in love with Natasha for almost half his life and never realized it.

Sleep was impossible after that. Maybe he'd dozed off once or twice, but the pieces falling into place-how blindly and completely head-over-heels he was for one of his best friends-kept him awake until his alarm went off. Even Bucky noticed, giving him the side-eye over cereal. "You look like shit, man."

"Thanks, Buck," Steve said dryly, reaching for the sugar bowl. All of the coffee in the world couldn't save him today, but damn if he wouldn't try. "Real confidence booster."

Bucky scoffed and shoveled another spoonful of Lucky Charms in his mouth. Bucky survived on the diet of a six-year old with a lack of parental guidance. "You want to get in touch with your feelings, or what?" he asked around the marshmallows.

Steve sighed, revolted at his best friend's lack of table manners. Maybe it was the lack of sleep messing with his ability to keep his mouth shut-in which case, he should definitely call off work-but he told Bucky the truth: "I'm in love with Natasha."

Bucky snickered and downed half his glass of orange juice before getting up and taking his dishes to the sink. "It's about goddamn time one of you admitted it out loud."

Wait, what? Steve frowned. "Wait, what?"

"You and Natasha," Bucky said, leaning against the counter with a self-satisfied smirk. "You've been in love with each other since high school, man, and neither one of you care to admit it."

Steve's brow furrowed further, and he took a sip of his coffee. Maybe he was delirious too. "That's impossible, Nat's never been-"

"Dude, she's been pining after your scrawny ass for years, trust me."

This was news. Steve thought about it while Bucky left for work. He thought about it during his commute, and then at his desk all day at work, and then on the way home. Natasha?  _In love_  with him? It was preposterous.

But then, after a dinner of cold pizza while sitting and watching a cop drama Bucky loved, he remembered the way she'd leaned into him during that meteor shower, resting her head on his shoulder while pointing out where the most streaks of light were. And how every time they fell asleep watching something she always clung to him like she was afraid he'd leave. How she'd blushed when he said she looked beautiful for that school dance, or every time she'd tackled him into a snowdrift or a pile of leaves and their faces wound up too close. The flicker in her eyes just before she shoved him at someone cute, or the way she'd hesitate before telling him she was dating someone.

The string of sad emojis from yesterday.

Hope flared in his chest, and he went to the bedroom. He flung the closet open, left drawers out, looking only for the essentials. "Steve, what are you doing?" Bucky asked as Steve exited his room with a duffel bag.

"I'm going to see Natasha."

Bucky raised his eyebrows, and Steve knew he had a point: Natasha lived six states away, and Steve hadn't slept at all last night. "And how are you getting there?"

"Last-minute plane ticket."

Bucky whistled as Steve tied his shoes and put on his coat. He double checked that he had his wallet and the credit card he kept for emergencies. This toed the line for what qualified as an emergency, but he'd take it. "Gutsy," Bucky said. "I like it."

Steve waved, shouldering his bag. "Don't burn my apartment building down, would you?"

"Name your first kid after me," Bucky called after him, making Steve laugh.

It wasn't a long drive to the airport, and he managed to secure a ticket on a red-eye to where Natasha lived. He slept on airport chairs, and then on uncomfortable airplane seats. When he got off the plane he knew he looked like hell and probably should have showered before flying a third of the way across the country for some stupid romantic gesture that probably wasn't going to work out. Natasha was seeing someone, and what was he  _doing_?

The thought made him drop his bag in the middle of the rental car line. Crippling panic flooded him for a moment, before Bucky's words yesterday came back to him: " _She's been pining after your scrawny ass for years, trust me."_

Even if he trusted no one else, Steve trusted Bucky.

The rental car was nice enough, and there were plenty of empty spaces in front of Natasha's townhouse. Steve knew she'd be home: it was early still and she never worked on Fridays.  _Awake_  was another matter, but he'd risk her wrath, and he knocked.

There was nothing for a while, and he knocked again-harder this time. Now he heard distinct movement from the other side, some thumps and curses that made him smile. Finally, the door opened. Natasha wore ratty old pajamas, her hair mussed from sleep. She blinked at him a few times, as if she couldn't quite comprehend he was really there. "Steve? Holy shit, what are you doing-what time-what are you  _doing_  here?"

Steve's heart raced. Now or never. "I… it's about Valentine's Day."

She looked crestfallen. Tiredly, she rubbed the side of her face and her fingers got stuck in her hair. He'd seen her do that hundreds of times, and it pulled his heartstrings to see her doing it now. "Oh, Steve, I'm sorry…"

"No, please just… let me finish. I want to get it out," Steve said, and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "Every year for the last thirteen years, we've spent Valentine's Day together. Screw Hallmark, whatever, single people can spend the day together and it's not romantic. And we had an unspoken rule that it was ok if we had plans. But I realized the other day… I didn't want you to have plans, not with anyone else. And that's stupid and macho of me, but Natasha I've been in love with you since we were sixteen and I'm an idiot because I didn't realize it until-"

Natasha cut him off by grabbing his shirt and pulling her to him, locking their lips in a kiss. Steve sighed, his arms going around her and pulling her close, cradling the back of her head. She tucked her head under his chin when they came up for air. "You  _are_  an idiot, how much did you spend to come out here?" she asked softly.

"Worth it, I hope," he said. His heart raced from nerves and the kiss, from how close he held her now.

She hummed, her hand resting over his heart. "I can't remember a time I didn't love you," she said softly. "I just didn't… I didn't want to risk our friendship if I said anything. You're my best friend, how cliche is that?"

Steve kissed the top of her head. "About as cliche as me getting jealous over you having a boyfriend and then flying across the country to put a stop to it, I think."

"We're a goddamn rom-com, Rogers." She pulled back a bit and smacked him on the shoulder, chuckling. "When I said I had plans, I didn't mean I had a  _date_. If I'd meant date, I would have  _said_  date. You should know that by now. I just didn't want you to make fun of me for going to a bachelorette party."

She had him there. Steve raised an eyebrow. "On  _Valentine's Day_? Who thought of  _that_?"

"Maid of honor. Something about 'screw Hallmark, whatever', and whatever else you said," Natasha teased, and her grin sent his stomach into cartwheels.

Steve laughed. He felt light, lighter than he had in the last 48 hours, maybe in the last thirteen years. "All right. So you  _are_  busy on Tuesday… what about Wednesday?"

Natasha hummed, tapping a finger against her chin exaggeratedly. He arched an eyebrow, and she smirked. "I  _think_  I'm free, I'll have to check with my social secretary though."

He grinned, and bent so that their foreheads touched. His arms hands drifted lower, pulling her waist close to his. "And how about every Valentine's Day for, oh, say… the rest of our lives?"

She smirked again, and pushed herself against him. "Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you?"

But before he could answer, she kissed him again. She clutched at his shirt, panting when they parted. "It's kinda cold out here, wanna take this inside?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and lifted her up into his arms while she shrieked her laughter.

His duffel bag lay on the porch, forgotten as the door slammed behind them. It was fine, turned out that he didn't really need it anyway.


	21. Pirates and Princes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pirates AU was requested by **agentavengerassassin**.

The sounds of cannon fire faded, replaced by frantic yells and the stamp of boots on the deck above. The captain's voice sounded outside the door. "Your Majesty, we're being boarded!"

Stephen fastened his cloak around his shoulders and drew the hood over his head. He threw the door open. "Thank you, Captain Barnes. I'll take it from here."

"Sire, this is not wise," Captain Barnes said in a low voice laced with urgency, grabbing Stephen's arm. He paused - James Barnes was one of Stephen's oldest friends and would never steer him wrong. But the time for protection was past.

Stephen covered Captain Barnes' hand with his own briefly. "Thank you, James," Stephen said quietly. "Please trust me to make this right."

Captain Barnes looked ready to argue, but after a moment remembered his place and nodded. "Good luck, Your Majesty."

Stephen strode up the wooden steps to the deck. Chaos reigned - bodies of soldiers and pirates alike littering the rails and the deck, blood staining the wood, the smell of gunpowder heavy in the air. He calmed his nervous heart, drew a breath, and bellowed, " _Parley!_ "

The pirates ceased their motions and his sailors followed suit.

All men of the sea knew the rules of parley.

One pirate, a dark fellow with pale scars littering his muscular arms and chest, dared to approach him. "Who are you to request parley?"

Stephen did not draw back his hood. "Who are you to question the laws laid by Neptune? It matters not who makes the request, but whether the request is honored. And those who do not honor the rituals of parley will be held to their accounts by Lady Justice when their time on this mortal earth ends."

The stillness that followed his speech was broken by a series of slow claps. The clapper remained unseen yet the sound drew closer, until Stephen could make out a short figure in a long, torn gentleman's coat. The light was weak and he could not discern any more than that. "Well, well, lads." The voice was rough. "We have ourselves a right scholar. Very well, Sir Scholar, I shall honor your request for parley. Wilson! Bring him to my ship."

The fellow, Wilson, before him grabbed Stephen by the arm and led him to the port side. The pirate ship was anchored and tethered closely to the  _Shield of Stars_ , requiring only a gangplank to cross between them. "I trust no harm will come to my men while I am aboard," Stephen remarked.

"Pirates we may be, Sir Scholar, but we too have our code of honor. No harm will come to your men while the parley is in effect," the short pirate replied, stepping off the plank and onto the ship.

Stephen was led to the captain's quarters. The short pirate strode around the impressive wooden desk (t reminded Stephen of the one that sat in his father's study) and took a seat. In the sharp relief of the lamplight, Stephen realized the short pirate - the  _captain_  - was a woman. Her grin reminded him of a shark as she kicked her feet up onto the desk. "Well, Sir Scholar, shall we parley?"

"We shall. Perhaps things would progress more smoothly if each side knew the other's identity," Stephen suggested.

She considered him for a moment. A slow smirk bloomed on her lips. "Remove your hood."

He complied - he was unarmed and with no one to aid him it was better that he do as he was bid. Her eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. "Well, well, well… I should stand, but I'm afraid a pirate queen curtsies to no one."

"You know who I am."

She inclined her head. The move was graceful and somber and her eyes never left his. "Prince Stephen, or should I say, King Stephen IX. Accept my condolences on the loss of both of your parents. A tragedy to lose your entire family in one fell swoop."

Stephen was taken aback. He expected no sympathies from pirates. "Thank you, my lady," he said, confusion lacing his tone.

The smirk was back. "I am no lady, Your Majesty. I am Natasha Romanova, queen of the North Seas, with twenty ships under my command. You stand on my flagship, the  _Black Widow_."

Of course. He was a fool not to have placed her sooner. Captain Romanova held a fleet of pirates under her control. She raided where she wished, evading capture for almost ten years. Tales of her exploits - of all sorts, some that had even made his own men blush to repeat - reached far and wide across the land. She was a fearsome and admirable woman - yes, admirable. Even a gently-reared prince could admire the will it took for a woman to embrace freedom with both hands and use it to soar to the top.

And she never let prisoners walk free.

Stephen knew he had to step carefully. "I bargain only for the lives of my men, and for the sake of my country. Kill me and leave my people in ruins. I am the last heir to the throne, with enough cousins spread through the land that deciding the next worthy ruler would lead to civil war and ruin."

Captain Romanova inspected her nails. "What do I care for your kingdom? A weak country leads to weak defenses. With your death, your people become ripe for the plucking."

He felt his life slipping away as he stood. "My life is in your hands, Captain, and I am aware you will do as you wish with it. If it can be done, I will grant anything you desire."

She lifted her eyes to his. They sparkled the most enchanting green in the lamplight. Stephen could see where some might call her a siren in pirate's clothing: she could enchant anyone with just her eyes. "Any desire at all, Your Majesty?" Her voice grew huskier.

"If it can be done," he repeated.

Captain Romanova sat back in her chair and watched him. Her fingers beat a rhythm into the hilt of her sword. He stood at a parade rest, awaiting his judgement. If he was to die tonight, at least let him die with dignity, and the knowledge that he had tried to plead for the safety of his people. After what felt like hours, she leaned forward, bracing herself on the desk with her elbows. "In exchange for your life and the lives of your remaining crew, you will grant my fleet safe harbor in any port under your rule. My men and I walk free in your borders."

Stephen fumbled for his words, outrage blooming hot under his collar. "Free to do what? To rob my people blind, leave their bodies for the crows? I will not put them in such danger - if that is your desire, then strike me down now and may the gods bear witness to your crimes!"

She threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, Majesty, you're a sight to see all bothered. If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. No, you silly man, if we are granted safe harbor and immunity, then we shall also be on our best behavior within your borders. Now, stealing wenches or knaves and cheating at cards in taverns… such is a pirate's life." She grinned wickedly. "And a life I'm certain your own law-abiding folk take to at times."

Stephen breathed easier with this promise. "Done. Any port city in any land I can claim mine, you and yours shall have safe harbor and immunity from the law. But know this, captain: any felonies committed by a member of your crew within my borders will be addressed swiftly and with justice. That ship and her crew will be written into the books of piracy and remain there until capture or death."

She held up her hand. "If you are adding stipulations, then I may add mine." He held in a sigh. Captain Romanova's eyes swept over her cabin before landing on him again. "Your firstborn."

Stephen blinked. "I have no children, captain. My betrothed is on her way to the castle as we speak. Before this progress, I had never seen her outside of portraits. When we were together we were heavily supervised."

Captain Romanova looked as if she might want to slap him for his stupidity. "Of course not, Your Majesty. I'm talking about your firstborn with me. All queens need an heir, you see," she said, and the wicked grin bloomed again. "Who better to create an heir than a king?"

Stephen stilled. She would have him here if she wanted. He would not harm a woman, even a pirate queen, and she was armed to the teeth. She would take what rightfully belonged to his betrothed. "Captain Romanova," he breathed.

She stood. There was a swing in her hips, one that made the gentleman's coat swish like that of a lady's skirts. It was hypnotizing. "Have we an accord, Your Majesty?" she whispered.

Surely his lady would understand. And there would be no need for her to know of the bastard heir of two thrones. For the gods, for his people, and for his country - he  _must_  do this. "We have an accord, Captain."

"Then let's seal it with a kiss."

* * *

The only story Princess Margaret ever heard was that the  _Shield of Stars_  had been overrun by pirates. No mention of parley ever came to her ears. After they married, Stephen decreed with a firm hand that no reports from any port cities ever reach the new queen's awareness. If the rumors of a pirate crew roaming inland reached the palace, well. There was nothing that could be done but make an empty promise that they would be swiftly dealt with.

His children, two girls and a boy, filled his life with joy he could never have imagined. But there were days when he wondered of his firstborn.

When Stephen could no longer separate the gray hairs on his head from the blonde, he heard a rumor from his chief provost. The  _Black Widow_  had docked in Port Aramouth, a city not half a day's ride from the palace. She'd never been seen within his borders since the night of the parley.

Curiosity overtook him.

He took no guards. His son was of age and capable, if Stephen's disguise was not enough to keep him from harm. He rode into the city on a black horse with old tack and stabled it at the inn the pirate crew was rumored to be staying in.

He drank ale with his people, observing them without pomp and circumstance for the first time. They were happy, the harvest looked sound, and peace with their neighbors left sons aplenty. If nothing else, Stephen could return to the palace content with this knowledge.

Then, on the stairs, heavy boots announced their arrival. There was no mistaking these men for anything but pirates. Stephen wondered where Captain Romanova was, when a young man with a shock of red hair hailed the barmaid. "A pint in every man and woman's hand, if it pleases my lady," he announced.

He was met with cheers and the order processed quickly. When the young man stood on the bench, a silence fell. He raised his pint, his face somber. Stephen watched him closely: the youngster was lanky - perhaps he was newly entered into manhood - and the muscles on his arms were hard and wiry. The blood red vest he wore looked new, as did the matching cuffs on his wrists. Stephen's eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch as he remembered: pirates mourned in red.

The young man raised his head and his eyes were the same piercing blue that Stephen saw every morning in his own mirror. "Grant a mourning son a moment's silence," he said, though he already had it. "For there were no one braver or fiercer than the Queen of the North Seas. She died as she lived, in freedom and in battle. May she reign in hell as she did on earth. Captain Romanova!"

"Captain Romanova!" Half the tavern echoed his words, the other half merely looked on in pity at the pirate's son. The tavern drank as one, Stephen a beat behind.

The crew raised their pints now. "The Queen is dead!" The man Stephen recognized as Wilson shouted. "Long live the King!"

And even Stephen raised his pint to his bastard son, murmuring with the shouts of his people, "Long live the King."


	22. Knight/Sorceress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a very short fantasy AU prompt I was given a few months ago and forgot to post. Sir Steven's quest hits a snag and he must seek out the Sorceress Natalia.
> 
> Cookies will be given if you discover the special cameo.

"You've come a long way," a woman's voice said.

Steven reined his horse in, flipping his visor up to see more clearly. The Black Forest spread around him in all directions, with no man, woman, or beast to be seen. The lack of beasts drew his attention the most: no sane creature lingered where magic lay. His own horse shied under him; Steven lay a soothing hand on his horse's neck to calm him. "Are you the Sorceress Natalia, the one I seek?"

The path to his right began to glow faintly and the woman's voice did not respond. Steven steeled his nerves — the sorceress was testy on her better days and known to turn dragon-slaying knights into dragonflies on her worst. He wheeled his mount to the right and followed the path until the forest fell away, leaving him to dismount in a clearing where the sorceress' cottage stood. He pulled his helm from his head and hung it from the saddle horn.

The door to the cottage opened, revealing a woman with waves of flaming hair dressed in white. "You may leave the beast untied. He is safe here and will remain within my protection spells."

Steven gave a short bow — anything further was difficult in plate armor — and straightened, striding forward to greet her properly. "Gracious lady, I seek your favor on my quest."

She leaned on the doorframe, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. Her gown hugged her voluptuous figure and Steven wondered if she, too, was a test to face on his quest. "I sensed as much, sir knight. The object of your quest, however, I was not able to divine."

"I seek the shield Svalinn."

He knew it was mad, and the way she arched a brow at him told him she thought much the same. "Svalinn the Sun-Guard? It is a myth, and if it were not it would not rest in our world."

Steven shook his head, reaching into his belt-purse for his proof. A map and a letter, in a language long-dead. He knew enough of the map's features to know he was heading in the correct direction, and the scholar who had translated some of the runes for him sent him to the sorceress for further answers. The shield was in this land, hidden, waiting for the right person to claim it. "Here, and it's translation —"

She shook her head, taking the worn parchment from him. "I know this language."

Natalia's brow furrowed more as she read. A cat, with eyes as purple as the clouds hanging overhead, bounded up the woodpile to jump onto her shoulders. Steven stopped himself from taking a step back, unnerved by the cat's human-like gaze on him. Natalia reached up and absently stroked her familiar's ears. "The gods have smiled on you this day, sir knight. I know a spell that will aid you on your quest."

Steven felt relief wash through him. She beckoned and he followed her in. "I will pay whatever you wish, anything you desire."

She smiled, secretive. "I have everything I require, sir knight. But perhaps another time we can negotiate my desires. Come, we have work to do."


	23. Summer camp AU (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing a follower celebration/fic writing spree on Tumblr and someone wanted me to peek in on these two at Camp Summerwind again (chapter 2). I apologize that it's been quite a while since I've written Steve and Natasha, so this may be a bit rusty. (probably could have waited until after seeing Cap 3, but this prompt really snatched me up. I do really like this little universe) :)

 

“Don’t hurt my baby makin’ babies,” Bucky warned as he handed the keys over.

Steve rolled his eyes. After weeks of subtle flirting, downright obvious flirting, and every single one of their friends attempting to shove them into the archery closet, Natasha finally agreed to go out with him on their last night off together.  Privately, Steve wondered if this was her way of protecting herself – if things went badly, they’d have minimal contact until next summer. He got that.

But if things went well…

“First, I would never sleep with anyone on the first date,” Steve told him. “Second, I would never sleep with anyone in your truck.”

Bucky poked him hard in the chest. “Better not. Anyone gets to deflower her it’s me.”

Steve raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you talking about Natasha or…?”

“Oh my God, dude, just go.” Still, Bucky held out his fist for their secret handshake. Steve shook his head ruefully, and then tapped his fist against Bucky’s. “Sweep her off her feet, man,” Bucky said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That leaves me with a very short list.”

“Exactly.”

Steve could hear his mom telling him his eyes were going to roll right out of his head; right after making him promise not to have sex in the truck, too. Choosing not to comment, Steve just waved over his shoulder as he started walking down the woods path to the staff parking lot. Natasha had promised to meet him there, though threats against the truck had been made within Bucky’s earshot.

She really, really hated that truck.

The butterflies in his belly must have multiplied about seven thousand times by the time he walked up the gravel path to the lot. Crickets and cicadas added a noisy chorus to the muggy August evening, but it wasn’t the heat that suddenly made Steve short of breath. The fading sunlight set Natasha’s hair aflame; it was twisted up in some complicated-looking braid-knot, revealing her bare neck and shoulders. He saw her at least twenty times over the course of every day for most of the last three months, but he’d never seen that gauzy strapless dress before – not that he’d have a reason to, but the fact that she had brought it in the first place made him stop short. “Wow,” he said.

Natasha glanced his way, unfolding her arms and smiling that crooked smile that made his stomach flip over. “Smooth, Rogers,” she said, pushing off the side of the truck. “Never thought I’d see the day you were speechless.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but he just kept staring at that dress. There were a few thoughts running through his head – most of them completely violating his promise to Bucky – but the one that stood out the most was trying to figure out how to get her to model for his figure drawing class in the fall.

Or maybe screw the class. Model for him in private.

“Steve.” Natasha brought him out of his reverie. She was still smiling, which was a good sign. Probably. “It’s just a dress.”

“It’s a really nice dress,” he said, feeling his IQ dropping the more he looked at her tanned legs peeking out from the flirty skirt.

He wondered how many mental tally points she gave herself for her outfit as he opened the door to the passenger side for her. She smiled her thanks and he did his best to look away as she climbed up into the cab – seriously, it’s like Bucky knew something like this might happen when he had the damn thing jacked up on the frame.

Well, maybe not with Steve and Natasha, but he wouldn’t put it past Buck to have something like this in mind.

Natasha fiddled with the radio for most of the drive out to ‘civilization’, changing all the saved stations just to piss Bucky off later. “Seriously, you’re not the one he’s going to kill,” Steve said, batting her hand away from the knob again.

Natasha smiled, propping her feet up on the dashboard. “You’re no fun, Rogers.”

“Hey, I’m plenty fun.”

“Says the guy who spends half the day hanging out with Peg in the crafts shed. You’re such an old man.”

Steve shot her an exasperated smile; Natasha just leaned back in her seat, dangling her hand out the window. He had a bit of a fight on his hands after that, keeping his eyes on the road versus watching the wind toy with loose strands of her hair or inch her skirt up higher. He told himself that deer loved coming out at this time of day and he didn’t want to spend most of his summer’s pay on repairs for the truck – or ruin the date he’d been looking forward to for weeks. “Feet off the dash,” he said instead.

“Why? Is it _distracting_?” she asked, her voice dropping half an octave.

Jesus, she needed to stop that. “No, just paranoid about hitting a deer. Hospitals are a real romantic first date and all, but I had something else in mind.”

He saw her smirk, but she heeded the mild warning. “So, first date? Sound pretty confident about the possibility of a second.”

“Your words, Tasha, not mine.”

She chuckled, then changed the radio station. Again. And saved it to a new number.

Fifteen minutes later, Natasha made a sound that was halfway between impressed and curious as they pulled into the parking lot of their destination. “Wow, it’s not McDonald’s, Wal-mart, or Jim & Sue’s.”

Steve cut the engine. “Nah. Figured I had to class it up a little.”

“And Eat’n Park is classing it up.”

He grinned. “Well, as late as we get out, it was hard to find somewhere that was open. And I don’t know about you, but I’m still pretty full from dinner – but they do have pretty good pie here.”

Natasha gave him a look that was hard to read – she was smiling, but there was something else in her eyes that he couldn’t name. Steve got out and jogged around to her side, opening the door for her again and holding out his hand to help her out of the cab. She surprised him when, after setting foot on the ground, she twisted her hand in his to clasp them together.

Though he’d been looking forward to this for weeks, Steve found it a little strange to be sitting in a diner alone with Natasha. She didn’t always join them on nights off – nights off were randomized – but normally if they were out it was with Bucky or Tony or Wanda in tow. Bucky and Tony normally gave Steve a jumping off point for talking, but Natasha… She could chatter with the best of them, but tonight it seemed like neither of them could find much of anything to say.

Their waitress was tired, not bothering to provide much small talk as she brought them drinks and then pie, and Steve couldn’t help but wish the waitress would say something to break the weird silence.

This was _Nat_. How the hell could he not think of what to talk about with _Nat_?

“I really don’t want to talk about work,” Natasha blurted out, a forkful of lemon cream pie halfway to her mouth. “And it fucking sucks because that’s all we do and I don’t know what to say.”

Steve laughed, relief flooding his system, and set down his fork. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Pretty shitty timing.”

“Should have brought a third wheel.”

“Oh God, like a chaperone. Can you imagine Tony chaperoning us? He’d be so obnoxious about it just to be a complete ass; we’d have to sit at completely different tables and like, pass notes to have a conversation.”

He laughed again and the weird tension melted away as they tried to figure out which of their friends would be the best option for chaperoning. From there they moved on to school; both of them would be sophomores in the fall at their respective universities and both were worried as they moved out of the gen eds and into core curriculum. “You should come visit,” Natasha said suddenly, reaching over to steal a piece of his crust. “It can’t be more than what, three hours from State College to the ‘burgh, right?”

Steve shrugs. “Dunno, never checked.”

“Seriously, if you get a break this fall, you should come hang out for a weekend.”

Steve studied her for a moment, then one corner of his mouth lifted. “Natasha Romanoff, is this you asking me on a second date?”

She snorted. “You wish. First one isn’t even over yet.”

“Ah, but there’s that ‘first’ again.”

She didn’t meet his eyes, but she was smiling as she picked up her glass and captured the straw between her lips.

Lips that Steve was very much interested in kissing right about now.

Not that he hadn’t been before, but if she was offering up a chance to see her during the off-season then the possibility of it seemed much more likely. Besides Bucky, who’d grown up down the street from him, Steve had never hung out with anyone from camp during the off-season. Facebook and phone calls, sure, but he had no idea what their lives were really like outside of the very self-contained ecosystem of Camp Summerwind.

He’s very interested in finding out what kind of person Natasha was the other nine months of the year.

She didn’t put up a fight when he insisted on paying, which also made him think this ‘come visit me in Pittsburgh’ thing was more of an extended date than a simple visit between friends. Natasha always pulled her weight, so he expected she’d insist on paying if – when – he came to visit her later in the year. He helped her into the truck again and they passed the time driving back towards the camp by reluctantly trading their schedules over the next week; camp was over on Saturday, but there was still a week of tear-down and winterizing to do, and it looked increasingly unlikely that they’d have much time to themselves when they wouldn’t be exhausted.

The clock on the dash said they still had about forty-five minutes before curfew, so Steve made a turn-off that would lead them down to a field with a pretty great view of the stars. “I prefer laying on the beach at the lake,” he admitted as they got out and he let the hatch down. “But this is okay too.”

They lay in the bed of the truck, pointing out constellations to one another and making up new stories since neither of them could remember what each one stood for. “Hey, put your arm around me,” Natasha said after they’d exhausted their known constellations. “Pretend like we’re on a date or something.”

“Nat, we are on a date.”

“Weird that your arm isn’t around me, then.”

Steve chuckled, then heeds her wish. Her skin’s a little cool to the touch, making him wish he’d thought to bring a blanket or something. But if he’d shown up to Bucky’s cabent with a blanket, he’d have definitely caught shit for it, and then the campers would have joined in because no other being on the planet lived for shit-talking someone more than fourteen-year old boys. “This is nice,” she said, leaning into the crook of his arm.

“Yeah,” he said, taking the opportunity to let his fingers trail over her arm.

“Maybe if you come to visit me, we can go on a second date.”

“And maybe, if you come to visit me at Penn, we can go on a third.”

She chuckled, then raised herself up on her elbow. “Now who’s getting ahead of themselves?” she asked, her tone teasing and her eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Hey, I’m just –”

But he couldn’t tell her what he was just, because she leaned down and kissed him, and every single thought that he’d ever had completely left his brain. He heard a soft, slightly muffle sort of sound and realized too late it came from him. But Natasha didn’t stop to tease him, instead angling herself over him a little better to deepen the kiss. And he definitely didn’t stop to tease her when she squeaked after he lifted her up on top of him.

(They may have broken curfew by a few – ten, maybe fifteen – minutes. And Steve may have broken his promise to Bucky a little.)

(It was totally worth getting busted on all fronts.)


End file.
